Apichatpon set to steal the show in S'pore

Apichatpon set to steal the show in S'pore

SINGAPORE (JP): Few may know him, but 30-year-old Apichatpon
Weerasethakul is one of the most interesting filmmakers to emerge
out of Thailand in recent times.

The architect turned filmmaker incorporates cinema theory and
philosophy into his design elements, and his works range from
painting, photography to holography.

Film making is now a full-time career, and for the past decade
he has been trying to transfer moods and ambience, rather than
plot, onto the screen. His conceptual documentary, Mysterious
Object at Noon, is listed among the best films of last year by
Film Comment magazine.

The 85-minute-long film inspired by Exquisite Corpse
Game, the surrealist western game, is filmed in an Asian style
and shot in 16 mm. Funds later helped to blow up the film into a
35 mm.

It will be screened on April 22 as part of the Asian Panorama.
In a retrospective, it is possible to see eight of his other
films on April 16, including Bullet,

Apichatpon's first film, is a silent black and white
experimental celluloid strip, upon which he discovers the beauty
of light and time.

Also five minutes in length is 0016643225059, another
experimental short that gently reflects the director's
emotions when he talks to his mother on the phone after a long
absence from home.

The longest film in the retrospective is the 27-minute
Malee and the Boy that documents one day in the life
of an 11-year-old boy who wanders around Bangkok gathering sound
bytes of the city.

The tribute to Mario O'Hara, a 55-year-old Filipino Thespian,
on April 21 and April 22 is also something to look forward
to. The brilliant all-round artiste, who was born to an
Irish-American father, started his career in acting on
the radio. Over the years Mario has acted, directed
and written scripts for films that are said to be the
best in Filipino cinema.

The Singapore International Film Festival makes it possible to
get a glimpse of Mario's versatile performance as a director in
his latest film Demons Aka Hope of the Heart. Filmed last year in
the Negros, it shows the island-province bubbling and
boiling with social unrest a few months after the
assassination of Ninoy Acquino in 1983. It remains his
most confrontational film to date.

Flowers of the City Jail from 1985 is a telling
commentary on the justice system in his country. Mario
shines as a screenwriter in Insiang where the
notorious "Smokey Mountain" garbage heap,
becomes the symbol of the country's economic downturn.

Directed by Lino Brocka, another darling of Filipino
cinema during its golden period in the mid-1970s and
early 1980s, the film was completed in a little over
two weeks and marked Brocka's debut at the prestigious
Cannes film festival.

You Were Weighed and Found Wanting was a critical and
commercial success when it was first released in 1974.
It remains a landmark in Filipino cinema.

Apart from writing the script, Mario, the one with the
greenish-blue eyes, also gives a brilliant performance
as Berto, the town leper in the same film. (Mehru Jaffer)