Film of the Month Winners: July
In July we hosted Apichatpong Weerasethakul, one of the all time great modern arthouse directors. A filmmaker’s filmmaker, Apichatpong won the Palme d’Or for his 2010 film Uncle Boonmee, having won prizes at Cannes for two features before that, Blissfully Yours and Tropical Malady, and has been a critical and festival favourite since his debut feature Mysterious Object at Noon.
Some warm and incisive words from the brilliant Thai director on the three finalists in July’s Film of the Month competition, below. These were three very strong films with no clear winner, as reflected by Apichatpong’s praise for each work.
Sulphur Spring by Oscar Oldershaw
Apichatpong’s favourite was Sulphur Spring, a Random Acts film by Oscar Oldershaw that follows a dance troupe interacting with an elderly man with Parkinsons. To Apichatpong, the film “is like a painting. It forms a canvas from rocks, snow, water, wind, and clouds. Humanity is an intervention that tries to blend in with nature. It breathes in the wind. It tries to survive the cold air by touching, as if the wrinkles and the memories exude the warmth.”
“I can watch this film over and over. I don’t understand it but it is just fascinating. The camera work invites us into the ritual, we are part of the alienation. The only thing I wish is that it was longer, so that there is the time for it to lend its weight onto the people inside the screen and those who watch them.”
He was no less keen on second place film, Alice Russell’s sex industry documentary Men Buy Sex. “Intriguing. I like that the film creates an evolving space for spectators. First we question the reality space, then the moral space. While we look at the women performing ‘dubbing’ the invisible men, we expect them to perform flawlessly to match the voices. It is disturbing to realise that we are part of the game. We take pleasure in the good ‘emulating’ skill of the women, that they are good ‘actors’. They have a physical presence but not their own voices.”
“I look forward to seeing more works from Alice Russell. I hope she continues to use complexity of the visible/invisible nature of life & cinema to confront us.”
Dear Aracauria by Matt Houghton
Apichatpong also wished for more time and space with Matt Houghton’s stunning doc Dear Aracauria. “I wish it offered more association of the crosswords and film structure. It can share with us the collapse of memory, of language…reconstructed and collapsed again, like the cycles of day and night, like the rotating wind turbines. I like the layers and textures it provides. The filmmaker dares to use different techniques, merging colours, fact and fiction, the flatness of the newspaper page, to the depth of our surroundings. Its intimacy inspires you to go out, see the sunset, and shoot.”