X
- 2016
- Unrated
- Strand Releasing
- 2 h 2 m
- 2016
- Unrated
- Strand Releasing
- 2 h 2 m
Summary Soldiers with a mysterious sleeping sickness are transferred to a temporary clinic in a former school. The memory-filled space becomes a revelatory world for housewife and volunteer Jenjira, as she watches over Itt, a handsome soldier with no family visitors. Jen befriends young medium Keng who uses her psychic powers to help loved ones ...
Directed By: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Written By: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
- 2016
- Unrated
- Strand Releasing
- 2 h 2 m
- 2016
- Unrated
- Strand Releasing
- 2 h 2 m
Cemetery of Splendor
6.7
Where to Watch
Summary Soldiers with a mysterious sleeping sickness are transferred to a temporary clinic in a former school. The memory-filled space becomes a revelatory world for housewife and volunteer Jenjira, as she watches over Itt, a handsome soldier with no family visitors. Jen befriends young medium Keng who uses her psychic powers to help loved ones ...
Directed By: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Written By: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 17 Critic Reviews
88
88% Positive
15 Reviews
15 Reviews
12% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 17 Critic Reviews
88
88% Positive
15 Reviews
15 Reviews
12% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
The mesmerizing and lingeringly paced Cemetery of Splendour, picks up where Freud left off.
It gently and often imperceptibly shifts between past and present, legend and modernity, wakefulness and reverie.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 31 User Ratings
6.7
61% Positive
19 Ratings
19 Ratings
23% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
16% Negative
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 31 User Ratings
6.7
61% Positive
19 Ratings
19 Ratings
23% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
16% Negative
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
Cemetery of Splendor may pretty much rule 2016 according to critics, but that title for my opinion will have to go somewhere else. Don't miss this film at all!
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These movies troubled me. They always have, because they are obviously about something, but the question of what always ends up being the issue when you finish them.
Up until today I had only seen one film and two short features by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, so I already had an idea of his style.
Even so, nothing prepares you for a film like this, because this is more about absorbing what you see on screen, accepting its contradictions and in a certain way within its structure and plot mechanism to associate some kind of understanding of what it means.
Anything else may imply wanting to push the boundaries or to pretend it's something else, but maybe that's also the subjective and personal meaning of each viewer, and at the end of the day I think that's what it's all about.
You either love it or you hate it.
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It is so lived-in and authentic in its real-world detail, and so enigmatic and mysterious in its diversions and sidelong glances, that it's difficult not to see it as overridingly personal, not just to the director but to the viewer. It's a true act of the most optimistic communication and communion.
While Cemetery of Splendor is unabashedly a work of slow cinema, the oft-hurled pejorative of “difficult” seems a particularly poor fit for a film whose unforced lyricism could scarcely be more graceful or inviting.
Past lives and ancient ancestors are evoked through conversations that are both cryptic and oddly matter-of-fact, in a work that has the realistic vibe of a documentary but the unearthly qualities of a sustained reverie.
It is such a strange film in its way, stranger still if you are not accustomed to Weerasethakul’s work, and it needs a real investment of attention. But there is something sublime in it.
What the film does have going for it is a ghostly atmosphere that leads to a few surprising developments, including some color effects and a charmingly off-the-wall musical number.
This has to be a practical joke by the community of film critics. An 87!!! The glacial pace of this movie, the plot that can be summarized in 2 sentences, that we watch someone take a crap for a full minute (and that crap scene has no relation to the plot-I guess it sets the mood-yeah, that this movie is a piece of crap) and this movie gets an 87! How do you take a 10 minute idea and turn it into a 2 hour film, watch this film and you'll see. That this film gets an 87 reminds me of going to an art exposition and seeing a red circle painted inside a blue rectangle and the painting is covered with awards and the critics say it is the work **** (and even then you wouldn't spend 2 hours looking at it - you just shake your head and walk away). The critics speak of this film as being subtle, authentic, mesmerizing, time shifting. Then I guess waiting in line for 2 hours at the DMV is a wonderful experience too. I don't mind subtitles. I enjoy thoughtful films. I don't need a car crash in a film for it to work for me. But this film gives me nothing. I can't wait for the director's cut, maybe I'll get to see three different scenes of people taking a crap. No, probably not, this film gives the impression that nothing was left on the cutting room floor. After 45 minutes of watching this film I figured that with an 87 score the movie would get better, that there would be some payoff, wrong! The only payoff available from this movie will be if there is a class action lawsuit to compensate anyone that lost two hours of their life to watching this movie. I guess you could say that I just didn't get it. In my mind it is a zero, but I gave it a 1 because some of my disappointment is probably due to the fact that I had high expectations due to the 87 score.
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Reading through all the reviews all I can think of is this is a case of The emperor's new clothes syndrome. Poorly portrayed pseudo magical realism. The imagery lacks craftsmanship in both lightning and composition, the storytelling is as open to interpretation as can be, which in the end seems like a gimmick for people to decide what the movie is about. Better movies have been made of and about dreams by great masters, Kurosawa, Fellini and Tarkovsky from the top of mind.
Lackluster and overly pretentious.
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Production Company
Kick the Machine,
Anna Sanders Films,
Match Factory Productions,
Geißendörfer Film- und Fernsehproduktion (GFF),
ZDF/Arte,
Astro Shaw,
Asia Culture Centre-Asian Arts Theatre,
Detalle Films,
Louverture Films,
Tordenfilm,
Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC),
Illuminations Films,
The Match Factory
Release Date Mar 4, 2016
Duration 2 h 2 m
Rating Unrated
Website
http://moviola.jp/api2016/haka/
Awards
International Cinephile Society Awards
• 1 Win & 5 Nominations
Chlotrudis Awards
• 1 Win & 4 Nominations
International Online Cinema Awards (INOCA)
• 3 Nominations
