Blissfully whose? Jungle pleasures, ultra-modernist cinema and the cosmopolitan Thai auteur

Abstract

Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a native of Khon Kaen in Northeast Thailand, a graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago, and twice a Cannes prize winner. This unusual trajectory defines his auteur self. In eclectically drawing on the North American and European traditions of avant-garde and art cinema, combined with the popular tradition in Thai cinema, Apichatpong's mode of cultural practice constitutes a kind of contact zone with the West, which is particularly dependent on transnational cinephilia for its visibility. His whole oeuvre and identity as a filmmaker is premised on the self-conscious marginality of his practice within Thailand, and simultaneously its appreciation by transnational institutions supportive of artistic and cultural cinemas. Our interest lies in tracing the complex impact of this encounter, which structures the attempt to articulate an alternative cinema in Thailand.