The exquis­ite sound of nature in the films of Apichat­pong Weerasethakul

Watch­ing an Apichat­pong Weerasethakul film will put you in an unde­ni­able, almost unfath­omable trance. From his ear­ly work in Bliss­ful­ly Yours right up to his Eng­lish-lan­guage debut Memo­ria, the Palme d’Or-winning direc­tor has nev­er shied away from cre­at­ing chal­leng­ing and mys­te­ri­ous pieces of slow cin­e­ma that con­tain unique com­men­taries on death and rein­car­na­tion. Through­out his career, Apichat­pong has con­sis­tent­ly utilised the rur­al set­tings of Thai­land – and most recent­ly of Colom­bia – and the world of sound which inhibits them to con­vey these intel­li­gent themes and cre­ate an intox­i­cat­ing atmosphere.

The jun­gles and forests that star in his films are every bit as impor­tant as the char­ac­ters them­selves, brought to life in vivid detail through strik­ing sound design. They evoke that incon­testable ​‘feel’ of an Apichat­pong film; the lan­guid, dream­like atmos­phere that will so often leave you light­head­ed and trans­port­ed. The open­ing of Uncle Boon­mee Who Can Recall His Past Lives – a film that explores rein­car­na­tion – begins with a water buf­fa­lo wan­der­ing through a for­est, a sil­hou­ette with red eyes watch­ing it.

The per­plex­ing nature of this cur­tain rais­er is backed up by the sounds of the for­est: the con­stant, rhyth­mic buzz of insects, a gen­tle and bare­ly detectable breeze, the rustling of leaves, and an eerie, near-silent atmos­phere. This heavy focus on the aur­al as a way to set the mood and tone of a film results in a hyp­not­ic and breath­tak­ing intro­duc­tion. For Apichat­pong, this is a styl­is­tic trade­mark that he returns to time and time again and as such his films have become a fuller sen­so­ry experience.

Beyond the sen­so­ry expe­ri­ence for audi­ences, Apichat­pong exam­ines these arbo­re­al set­tings on a more sym­bol­ic lev­el, embed­ding fables and real-world his­to­ry into these envi­ron­ments. Uncle Boon­mee sees Apichat­pong deploy stills of sol­diers (from an unknown peri­od) on duty in the fields and forests of Thai­land, mark­ing out the his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry of these places; humans might move on, but the earth remem­bers. It is these themes of envi­ron­men­tal mem­o­ry, kar­ma and rein­car­na­tion that are so impor­tant to Uncle Boon­mee, and which could not be achieved in such a frank and mem­o­rable way with­out Apichatpong’s mas­ter­ful util­i­sa­tion of the rural.

Uncle Boon­mee also has a short inter­lude to the main nar­ra­tive, telling the sto­ry of a princess mak­ing love to a cat­fish in a mag­i­cal water­fall set­ting. Lit by moon­light, the rur­al sur­round­ings imbue the sequence with an enchant­i­ng feel. Dia­logue is used spar­ing­ly, with the sounds of the for­est giv­ing way to the gen­tle run­ning of the water, as the fan­tas­ti­cal imag­i­na­tion of the fable comes to life. These sto­ries, real or oth­er­wise, are part of the very fab­ric of nature.

Per­haps out of all of Apichatpong’s med­i­ta­tions on nature pre­served on film, a rev­er­ence for its vast­ness feels most res­o­nant. The sec­ond part of his 2004 tri­umph, Trop­i­cal Mal­a­dy, is a jaw-drop­ping sequence about a sol­dier lost in the jun­gle, sent alone to kill the spir­it of a tiger shaman, and is again backed up by intense sound design. The tale is as far fetched as they come, chal­leng­ing to under­stand and huge­ly mem­o­rable. This com­plex­i­ty is embod­ied by the jun­gle, the beau­ty of it being that we will nev­er ful­ly grasp the great details of Apichatpong’s fable, let alone the secrets of the nat­ur­al world.

The jux­ta­po­si­tion of urban and rur­al set­tings is stark in many of his films, per­haps most so in Bliss­ful­ly Yours. Its city-based scenes are expect­ed­ly human, bustling with every­day life; then Apichat­pong trans­ports the char­ac­ters and the audi­ence into the coun­try­side with a long track­ing shot filmed from the back of a car. The den­si­ty of peo­ple, shops and cars decreas­es until it hits zero, and all that remains is the vast­ness of the jun­gle. The char­ac­ters’ moods change, phys­i­cal and men­tal heal­ing takes place, all with­in this dense, nat­ur­al idyll. The urban and the rur­al exist side by side, but Apichat­pong is aware that human com­pre­hen­sion of the lat­ter remains del­i­cate; the pre­cious­ness of untouched envi­ron­ments should always remain.

Watch­ing an Apichat­pong fea­ture is much like being in a very spe­cial, very pleas­ant dream. His works are cin­e­mat­ic enig­mas, rep­re­sen­ta­tive of our own com­plex world, its incom­pre­hen­si­bil­i­ty and its unde­ni­able beau­ty. The rural­i­ty of his films is an impor­tant, sym­bol­ic aspect, rep­re­sent­ing these themes and giv­ing these works an allur­ing tone that will chal­lenge and per­plex view­ers. But when that famil­iar buzz of insects begins, you know you are back in the warm and mys­ti­cal embrace of an Apichat­pong film.