''Cemetery of Splendour'' ( th, Rak Ti Khon Kaen) is a 2015 Thai

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

written, produced, and directed by

Apichatpong Weerasethakul Apichatpong Weerasethakul ( th, อภิชาติพงศ์ วีระเศรษฐกุล; ; ) is a Thai independent film director, screenwriter, and film producer. Working outside the strict confines of the Thai film studio system ...

. The plot revolves around a spreading epidemic of sleeping sickness where spirits appear to the stricken and hallucination becomes indistinguishable from reality. The epidemic is used as a metaphor for personal and Thai societal issues. The film premiered in the

Un Certain Regard (, meaning 'a certain glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob. The section presents 20 films w ...

section at the

2015 Cannes Film Festival The 68th Cannes Film Festival was held from 13 to 24 May 2015. Joel and Ethan Coen were the Presidents of the Jury for the main competition. It was the first time that two people chaired the jury. Since the Coen brothers each received a separate ...

to critical acclaim.

Plot

Soldiers with a mysterious sleeping sickness are transferred to a temporary clinic in a former school. The memory-filled space becomes a revelatory world for housewife and volunteer Jenjira, as she watches over Itt, a handsome soldier with no family visitors. Jen befriends young medium Keng who uses her psychic powers to help loved ones communicate with the comatose men. Doctors explore ways, including colored light therapy, to ease the men's troubled dreams. Jen discovers Itt's cryptic notebook of strange writings and blueprint sketches. There may be a connection between the soldiers' enigmatic syndrome and the mythic ancient site that lies beneath the clinic. Magic, healing, romance and dreams are all part of Jen's tender path to a deeper awareness of herself and the world around her.

Cast

* Banlop Lomnoi as Itt * Jenjira Pongpas as Jenjira * Jarinpattra Rueangram as Keng * Petcharat Chaiburi as Nurse Tet

Release

''Cemetery of Splendour'' premiered at the

in the

section.

Reception

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds a 97% approval rating based on 71 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. The site's consensus reads, "''Cemetery of Splendour'' gracefully eludes efforts to pin down its meaning while offering patient viewers another gently hypnotic wonder from writer/director Apichatpong Weerasethakul." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 87 out of 100 based on 17 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".

Year-end lists

''Cemetery of Splendour'' was ranked 5th in the ''

Sight & Sound ''Sight and Sound'' (also spelled ''Sight & Sound'') is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). It conducts the well-known, once-a-decade ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time, ongoing ...

'' 20 best films of 2015, and 2nd in the ''

Cahiers du Cinéma ''Cahiers du Cinéma'' (, ) is a French film magazine co-founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca.Itzkoff, Dave (9 February 2009''Cahiers Du Cinéma Will Continue to Publish''The New York TimesMacnab, Ge ...

''s 2015 Top Ten chart.

Accolades

References

External links

Official kick the machine site
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cemetery of Splendour 2015 films 2015 drama films Thai drama films Thai-language films Films directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul