Cemetery of Splendor

In Khon Kaen, in Thailand's northeast, an old school has been turned into a temporary hospital. Inside lie soldiers who have fallen into a sleeping sickness. None of them wake, and nobody knows why. Jenjira, a volunteer, sits with a soldier called Itt, who has no visitors. Beside the beds stand tubes that change colour, put there to soften what the sleepers dream. The film does not explain the illness. When Itt begins to speak through a medium, what emerges is this: an old royal cemetery lies under the school, and the dead kings are using the soldiers' energy for their own wars. The story neither confirms nor denies it; the line between waking and dreaming has been erased on purpose. Apichatpong Weerasethakul wrote, directed and produced. Khon Kaen is where he grew up. It screened in Un Certain Regard at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. The director announced he would not show it in Thailand, since getting past the censors would have meant censoring himself. He then stopped making films in the country, and this remains the last feature he shot there. Who it is for: anyone who likes Apichatpong and storytelling built on long static takes. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for events. The scenes run very long, nothing is explained, and the film does something sleep-related to the audience as well.