Blissfully Yours (2002)

Dir: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

France-Thailand

If there was one director’s filmography which, if you were to view as one single narrative, a single world created by the filmmaker, would intercut together and produce the most cohesive results, it would be that of Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. In one area of Thailand, a hunter searches the jungles for a ghost tiger that may consume both his flesh and soul (Tropical Malady (2004)), while in the village of Nabua, in the north-eastern region of the country, six years later, a man named Uncle Boonmee is about to end his life, seeing his past lives while the forest area is populated by red eyed, wandering ghost monkeys. His use of duality and the disruption of conventions in cinema would allow his non-fiction work to co-exist with his fiction work as well; A Letter To Uncle Boonmee (2009), a short about Weerasethakul’s views on making Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) could exist in the same world as the fictional film itself. The spiritual landscape to almost all the films I’ve seen is a huge part of them but what is also significant to Weerasethakul is that the grounded, ‘real’ world itself is as much part of the supernatural and the fictional, a factor that would make it possible for his films to co-exist as one single entity (bear in mind too that A Letter To Uncle Boonmee and Uncle Boonmee... are both part of a multi-media project of the director’s called Primitive, which from what I been able to see and read of its materials is the same thing as I have talked about, blurring the real and fictitious in its attempt to portray the Nabua region). Blissfully Yours (2002) is both his most realistic film from what I have seen – give or take the need to rewatch Syndromes and A Century (2006) – and yet its presentation of ordinary human interaction is just as evocative as the ghost tigers and monkeys, presented in a way unexpected in film. Weerasethakul is able to place the fantastical into an ordinary world of his creation, and viser-versa, he makes scenes of minimal dialogue and small moments of interaction heightened like the supernatural moments.

Anyone reading this review will already have read the word ‘minimalistic’ and it needs to be emphasised for anyone who has not seen one of the director’s films that it is very different even to other ‘art’ films, with a much slower pace for its character study. It is minimalistic even compared to his other films. It may be described as the archetypal film about ‘nothing’, and yet not only is this an extremely dismissive phrase but completely misses the point of films like this – it is a film about ‘something’, the sexual and emotional relationships between two sets of characters. One is a young woman, Roong (Kanokporn Tongaram), and a Burmese immigrant with a severe skin condition called Min (Min Oo), who spend a deeply intimate rendezvous together picnicking in the rainforest, while the other is of an older woman Orn (Jenjira Jansuda) whose activities away from the other two end up connecting back to them. The film itself can be described as being split into two parts as well; up until Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, this narrative trait was common in the director’s work, until he decided to split the narratives strands of his work even further with Uncle Boonmee.... Here though, the split is not as drastic as in his later films – Tropical Malady could be seen as two short films which yet interlink in terms of the actors used and how they represent and contrast each other – and can be seen as the set-up for the film and the film itself. In fact, it is presented as an extensive pre-credit sequence that is almost forty or so minutes long and the film itself, a wonderful manipulation of the structure of films by Weerasethakul, which leads to the credits being played in the middle of the film as the young couple drives to the rainforest of the second half. It caused me to laugh in delight when this took place, but it makes far more sense for the director to have done this, than follow the convention of having them at the start, in the context of the film.

The first half, set in an urban town, is the set-up of the character relationships, the relationship between the young couple, the skin condition that the man Min has which is a minor aspect but is prominent in the story, that he is an illegal immigrant from Burma (given the film a political layer) and the fact that the older woman Orn is considering having another child. (It is subtly expressed that her first child died, a small piece of her background which Weerasethakul does not reference again in the film and yet has importance for her character, a great example of how he is as good with crafting his characters as well as the fantastical aspects of his work). The ‘pre-credit sequence’ also sets up the style of the film – unbroken sequences of characters talking or silent, and a vivid sense of the environment even if it is in cramped hospital rooms and government offices – that will make up the whole film, such as the prolonged moments in the hospital where Min has his skin condition checked by a female doctor. Everything in this part (as well as those in the second half) is engaging, with the small interactions between the actors on screen being as significant and important as a plot twist in a more mainstream films; what one has to concentrate on are the emotions and feelings felt between the characters, which is of much more importance than a narrative which is driven by events and act structures. The pre-credit sequence does not connect with the title of the film and its themes though. Set in a normal urban environment, the characters in the pre-credit sequence are not only having to face the everyday grievances most people have (doctor’s appointment, working shifts in low paying manual jobs), but are also surrounded by environments which, despite having some beauty to them if you view them from a different perspective, are daub and lifeless if you were to live in them for most your life. Weerasethakul, having grown up with parents who were both doctors, has admitted he likes the atmosphere inside hospitals, but it is clear that the depiction of the one in this film is aesthetically tedious on purpose, lacking any real sense of life or passion to it, the same as almost all the urban environments except for where the countryside has partially invaded it.

It is only when the characters get to the countryside when you are truly watching a film called ‘Blissfully Yours’. It is clearly set a real part of the Thai rainforests, but it is also a fantasy environment, heightened both visually and aurally, where one is able to escape everyday work and life and you are able to become more intimate and sexually active. The themes of intimacy and sex become centre stage as the three main characters spend their time away from their stressful urban environment.  It is absolutely striking how the rainforest environment looks on screen, incredibly colourful and exceptionally dense for a jungle depicted in a film. In a Jean-Luc Godard short called Lettre à Freddy Buache (1982), Godard comments about the tensions in filming the greens and the blues of a Swiss town called Lausanne, which he was originally supposed to make a film about to celebrate its 500^th anniversary, suggesting that between the green trees and the blue sky the grey urban environment of manmade buildings would have been sandwiched between them and affected the quality of the film. This conundrum came to mind with Weerasethakul’s film as it literally plays out this issue, contrasting the grey urban environments with a rainforest of the deepest green foliage and the bluest skies you could see in contemporary cinema, distancing the tepid grey town environment with a passionate country one. The soundscape is just as important as the landscape as well; diegetic sound, that which is within the film’s ‘world’ itself instead of being played over scenes, especially in natural and countryside environments with a significant wildlife population, is an underrated and neglected artform in cinema, one which I feel is just as responsible in making certain contemporary films like those of Weerasethakul’s as affecting for viewers like me and for many film critics. The sounds of real life birds and insects add to the realism of the environment yet, paradoxically, it adds to its fantastical nature, creating a place far removed from the real urban world and adding to the unexpected atmosphere of the environment; one particular sound for me exemplifies this, what surely (must be?) a sound of an insect unique to Thailand and yet sounds like a circular saw, as if there is a sawing mill somewhere under the vast tree canopies. The fact that most of the interactions between the characters are silent, or with Orn by herself, means that the soundscape of the rainforest is prominent and significant, bringing a sense of depth and wonder to the place. Since sound is an artistic decision as well as a technical one, both the director and his film crew, especially Lee Chatametikool and Teekadet Vucharadhanin who, according to IMDB, were in charge of sound design, deserve applause for their decision to emphasis it and how it was constructed.

Within this second environment the characters interact – the young couple spend their time together having a picnic, finding an idyllic spot to sit and contemplate, while the older woman searches for her own intimate moment within distance to them. Very little, in terms of ‘multiplex’ cinema where there are momentous events from the world blowing up to characters simply arguing, happens but what is felt by the characters in each scene replaces it and is significant. This is taken even further by the fact that Min’s subconscious is shown to the viewer, both through monologues and also having drawings and writings by the character mark the screen itself, placed over what is seen at various times. It adds to the character events but also continues Weerasethakul’s breaking with conventions; it brings a charm to the film seeing Min’s drawings of women and men, with their sexuality very defined, on top of the real sexual and emotional interactions between the characters. Also of significance is, as mentioned continually, the role of sexuality. There is wariness in what I should say because the film is both very sexually explicit but also the sex only makes up a small fraction of the film. It is necessary for the film, shown in a naturalistic way which fits the film’s pace but also feels necessary for its ideas. The sex scene between Orn and a man she meets, one which stands out from many others – with some sadness because of its rarity – because of the older ages of the two actors involved, adds to the issues the character has and also is depicted in a way that is prolonged, to the point that it feels the two are actually having intimate sex on screen, thus emphasising what we know about Orn that was set up in the pre-credit sequence. The other sexual interactions are less potent in their context of the film’s slight narrative but add to the sensual relationships. They also vary in explicitness, with one shot behind the actors so that the mind imagines the sexual activity far more evocatively  than if one was to see it, and the other, the sight of a penis slowly becoming erect as it is being stroked, being showed in full detail. The later is at the centre of my issues with discussing the sexual content of the film, as it is probably the main driving force behind the issues of film classification and censorship that have taken place with this film. I have no idea how it was edited, but the fact that the sex scenes were edited out of the film in the director’s native country is disappointing. My biggest issue however is the 18 certificate - the highest rating outside of R18, the rating for pornography - this film has in the United Kingdom. On one hand I understand that the British Board of Film Classification, who rates films in my country for cinema and DVD release, have rated films as more adult for their sexual content consistently, but in this case it raises questions. The film has no violence, no swear words from what I can remember, and very little else objectionable, and yet because it has some sex scenes and a scene of an erect penis this film has an 18 certificate. Even the fact that, because it was being stroked by a hand, the scene is of real sexual activity being recorded on film doesn’t convince me. It is a complaint that has probably been made by many before me, in some way or another, but is the sight of an erect penis really more unsuitable for younger audiences than a gun being fired at someone?  I realise there may be a sub-par Freudian aspect to the comparison, which was intentional on my part, but the issue of sex and violence in film needs a much longer and separate article for me to even consider tackling it. Certainly in this case, the matter of fact nature of the moment, and the other sex scenes, seems far less offensive than a character getting a bullet in the head with a splash of CGI gore coming out of behind them.

The combination of these sexual scenes and the interactions seen in the second half open up the characters to the viewer but also emphasises another of the main themes of the film. As mentioned the rainforest is an escape for the characters, one which has to potential to be liberating, but by the end this is undermined, shown to be just a minor break from the difficulties of their everyday urban lives. The red ants in the rainforest become a metaphor for this, intervening in the young couple’s enjoyment by invading their picnic. It is very obvious – and for good reason, as whether it’s here in Britain or in this depiction of Thailand ants can be a nuisance when eating outdoors – but works perfectly for showing that the perfection and joy the couple feel will be short-lived. As for Orn, her personal issues about children play subtextually with what happens to her in the film. It is a very simple narrative behind the minimalist structure of the film, one which is masterfully crafted by Weerasethakul. Even though it is an earlier film by him, it feels rigorously straightforward, presented in the heightened visual and aural design in a way which increases its effect on the viewer and furthers the emphasis on the sensual, to the point that the film is sensual for said viewer as well. By the end of the film there is complete silence from the characters and yet the emotional connections between them can still be clearly seen; there are much more narratively complex and dialogue heavy films which fail to make the emotions tangible for the viewer, something which this film succeeds in far greatly. In terms of the director’s later films, it fits both with the natural and supernatural sides of his work as, discussed in the first paragraph or so of this essay, he conveys the normal world in a way through sensuality that is just as unearthly. (One example of this is when Orn finds a surgical mask in the forest and wears it; there is no explanation to why it is there or why she should wear it, and yet it both real and surreal at the same time, as it is not hard to believe that one could find such unexpected items dumped in the countryside and that you may be interested in picking them up). It also shows one of the many different angles Weerasethakul would take in depicting sexuality, especially with Tropical Malady as its two parts can be seen as two different interpretations of passion and love between men.

Blissfully Yours has the potential to top Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives as Weerasethakul’s most succinct and best film for me. It is an achievement; it is a small film in both of its themes and its budget, but it gives its characters and ‘slight’ narrative more significance than in most narratively complex works. Weerasethakul deserves his praise for both this and his later work as he is able to combine a thorough emotional connection to his work with a fantastic use of visuals and sound, turning areas of his native Thailand into hyper-sensual and hyper-aural environments, all of which is also used to add to the narratives and ideas within them. He stands up as a far better director than fellow filmmakers who have gained considerable praise since the last decade in that he is very much an ‘arthouse’ director, who makes very minimal, abstractly structured and slow paced works, and yet still emphasises the engagement the viewer can have to cinema by placing the viewer into his cinematic world, a combination of a real Thailand and a heightened version of it, far deeper than other directors have. It also deserves praise in that the idea shown in the film - of being able to briefly escape the dead ends of ordinary life, only to see that you will eventually have to return to it - is one of the best portrayals of this than in many other films I’ve seen. It is with this film, and his exceptional track record as a director, that I place Apichatpong Weerasethakul amongst the small list of directors, even if they made mistakes at times, I hold up as the best and most interesting from what I’ve seen of their work, both alive and deceased, the rising talents, the underrated or the canonised. That Weerasethakul is active and, riding the wave of success of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, getting even more recognition as a filmmaker gives me great hope that he continues making great films. There may be the danger that, at this critical point of his career, he may slip up in his work - I also need to re-evaluate Syndromes and A Century, which I felt cold to when I watched it for the first time as my first film of his - but hopefully he will be able to add more to the world that he has created, to add to the ghost monkeys and the character drama he made with Blissfully Yours. It would be interesting to see his return to this early film, of a small scale drama and to its sexual frankness, from an older perspective and possibly from new angles, which would be wonderful to see. I do not expect to see a sequel to this, although the idea of such a film happening considering the coda to this one, and the fact that he has never continued on from his older work yet, would be fascinating, just to see where he would take the characters of Roong, Min and Orn next when they face having to return back to everyday life. It is the perfect place to start such a continuation and the perfect place to end this review.