Assembling the natural and the supernatural in Thai independent cinema: the ethno-cinematographic rhizomes of Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Abstract

The article introduces the concept of “ethno-cinematographic rhizome,” inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s conceptual framework. This is a non-representational model of an ethno-social world built with time-images, non-hierarchical and characterized by multiplicity, which through memories, myths, fantasies, and dreams open up the actual to the virtual. The concept is applied to Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s cinema. Through the analysis of his most representative films, Tropical Malady (Sud Pralad, 2004), Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Lung Boonmee Raluek Chat, 2010) and Cemetery of Splendour (Rak Ti Khon Kaen, 2015), I show how they are characterized by the rhizomatic assemblage of natural, daily-life profane components and by supernatural, spiritual and sacred components, which present us the Thai region of Isan. Apichatpong’s ethno-cinematographic rhizomes can help us to deepen in a contemplative and perceptual way our understanding of the ethno-cultural world of Isan, while connecting at a broader level with the “ontological turn” in anthropology by, among others, Philippe Descola, Bruno Latour, and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro.