Forest as Medium: Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cinematic Liberation

Résumé

Due to its geographic location and tropical climate, the forest is a recurring element and a representative space to depict historical traumas and social movements in Southeast Asian cinema. Thai filmmaker, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, also incorporates the mysterious jungle in his cinematic world as a significant motif of the narrative. Therefore, this paper investigates how the forest is an artistic medium that interconnects the film narratives and the liberation protests locally and globally across Apichatpong’s cinematic world from three perspectives. First, I argue that in Tropical Malady (2004), the forest mediates between Apichatpong’s personal homosexual experience and the transmission of Thai cultural-specified queer consciousness and suffering. The unnerving forest in this film hence delivers Apichatpong’s call for gay liberation and equal rights. Moving further from this subcultural depiction to a national identification, I suggest that the forest in Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) brings in the Thai historical trauma and violence, namely the communist resistance in the Isaan area. It allows the precarious jungle to represent Apichatpong’s political calling against the military dictatorship in order to regain freedom in Thai society. Finally, I analyze Apichatpong’s latest film, Memoria (2021), regarding its staging of the 2021 Colombian Protest against corruption and the 2021 Thai Protest against the reforming of the monarchy. The contemplating “transnational” forests thus relate to the totalitarianism in both countries. Together with the film crew’s public demonstration at Festival de Cannes, Apichatpong’s films speak to the idea that digital media can serve as promotors in liberation movements.