“Apichatpong Weerasethakul: The Serenity of Madness,” an exhibition currently on display at the School of the Art Institute’s Sullivan Galleries, not only is a beautiful collection of video installations and still images, but provides new insight into the career of one of the most important filmmakers working today. The content of “Serenity” might be described as the interstices of Weerasethakul’s filmmaking career, with video diaries, short films, and photographs that meditate on themes and images elaborated on in the Thai director’s features. Meditate is the operative word—like Weerasethakul’s movies, “Serenity” offers a calm, immersive space where one can contemplate notions of spirituality, romance, war, and death. The exhibit covers 22 years of output and more than three hours of audiovisual material, yet “Serenity” doesn’t feel overwhelming, thanks to the cool reflection the works engender.
The recent work showcased in Serenity is particularly useful for understanding Cemetery. In fact the pieces made between 2012 and 2014 feel like an extended prologue to that work. Cemetery is Weerasethakul’s most political film, with the sleeping soldiers serving in part as a metaphor for Thailand’s paralyzed state following the political crisis of recent years. Politics enter into the filmmaker’s recent video pieces, albeit obliquely, showing how his spiritual concerns interact with the physical world around him. In Ashes (2012), a combination of still images and video footage, Weerasethakul considers elements of his daily life, such as taking walks, observing animals, and buying groceries. Images of protesters enter into the montage but do not overwhelm it—their political activity becomes part of the flow of the director’s experience. I’d seen Ashes a few years ago when it premiered online, but viewing it projected on a large wall was like watching it for the first time. The flow of everyday life becomes monumental in this context, and the political allusions assume a greater resonance as well. It’s the most impressive single piece in the exhibit, texturally rich and inspired in its juxtapositions. Fireworks (Archives) (2014) contemplates the plight of an artist whose life was overtaken by politics. The work consists mainly of shots of sculptures by Luang Pu Bunleua Sulilat, a Buddhist monk who fled to Laos in the 1970s after he was accused of being a communist. Weerasethakul shoots the statues at night, creating a spooky vibe reminiscent of the nocturnal scenes of Uncle Boonmee. The sculptures are fascinating—I particularly liked one of two human skeletons sitting arm in arm—but the melancholy aura (with its associations of political persecution) overwhelms their aesthetic impact. The video reaches a sense of catharsis, however, when Weerasethakul presents shots of fireworks. The piece is projected on a pane of glass (just like another work in the exhibit, the 1999 video sketch Windows), and the light from the fireworks bounces off the pane and onto the floor, illuminating the room in which Fireworks is displayed. It’s a beautiful moment, suggesting optimism amid tragedy.
