One of the most interesting directors to enter the world of arthouse cinema in the past 15 years is Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Perhaps best known for winning the Palme d’Or in 2010 for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, “Joe” (as he is affectionately referred to by his fans in the West) has a unique type of cinema that is all his own.

Weerasethakul often shoots his films in rural Thailand, his native country, finding powerful and unsettling links between humanity and the world around us through magical realism that is typically shocking in the way it creeps onto the screen seemingly unannounced. By playing with the concepts of narrative and artifice, Weerasethakul is one of the most influential directors working today, and at 45, he seems to have a long career ahead of him.

Weerasethakul’s newest film, Cemetery of Splendour, is about a group of soldiers suffering from a mysterious sleeping sickness in a hospital. It premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival this year, receiving near-universal praise from critics. The film just had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (read our review here), and will be making its US premiere at the New York Film Festival. Strand Releasing acquired US distribution rights for Cemetery of Splendour after its Cannes premiere.

Below we rank each of this auteur’s feature-length works, excluding Cemetery of Splendour.

Perhaps Weerasethakul’s only outright “bad” film, this can almost be forgotten, as Joe created it when he was having trouble raising funds for Tropical Malady, and it is the only feature in his filmography for which he is not credited as the sole writer and director. The Adventure of Iron Pussy is a parody of Thai action films, but it is unsuccessful in its satire, as the mere presence of tropes common in Thai action cinema does not make an effective parody. The critical eye toward the conventions of narrative cinema that characterizes much of Weerasethakul’s work seems to be absent, as The Adventure of Iron Pussy revels in the ridiculous elements of its genre rather than commenting on them.

Mekong Hotel is an interesting beast. The oft-cited claim that it is a docu-fiction hybrid is true, but a better description might be that it is a documentary about fiction. The film tells a fictional horror story involving zombies and cannibalism, but while doing so, it documents its own making, capturing the players as both their characters and as themselves, contextualizing the ostensibly non-diegetic score within the same space as the narrative, and showing Weerasethakul himself at times. The idea here is that, by overtly separating fiction from non-fiction, there is some inherent cacophony when attempting to weave the two together, an idea that is touched upon in a more subtle and nuanced manner in most of Weerasethakul’s other work. Mekong Hotel is less complex and developed as his masterpieces, but the concepts explored in this work are certainly interesting.

Weerasethakul’s first feature film was a documentary similar in subject matter to Mekong Hotel, as it explores the nature of storytelling and the concept of narrative. In Mysterious Object at Noon, the supernatural tale of a disabled boy and his tutor is conveyed through the “exquisite corpse” structure, in which a number of narrators each tell a small portion of the story. We experience a cinematic retelling, a staged retelling, and oral retellings by a number of different narrators, each adding their own manner of narration that changes our understanding of the story. Though it is not the most coherent of Weerasethakul’s films (deliberately so), it creates an interesting thought experiment and immediately identified the director as one worth listening to.

Winner of the Un Certain Regard Prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, Blissfully Yours was Weerasethakul’s sophomore feature and the one to establish the ideas and elements that would become common throughout his filmography. It is a slow-moving yet thematically striking film that takes place in rural Thailand, using nature as a lens through which the characters learn about themselves. Nature becomes more than just a place to be in; it becomes a place to be with. The discreteness of the human body is contrasted frequently with the continuous expanse of trees and other foliage characterizing the jungle setting, allowing the film to establish a cosmos of the human body, a method of exploring one’s own sense of being through one’s surroundings. Though difficult to pierce at a first viewing, its mysteries will stick with you long after the credits roll.

Weerasethakul’s first film to play in competition at Cannes won him the Jury Prize, and for good reason: this two-segment anthology film is pure genius. The first part tells a love story between two men, while the second utilizes the same actors to tell a fairy tale of a soldier who gets lost in the forest and meets the mysterious spirit of a tiger. Though initial reviews were mixed, Tropical Malady is now celebrated as a masterpiece, earning the #8 spot on Film Comment’s decade-end critics’ poll. The tangencies and similarities that the film finds between the forbidden love of the first half and the intense mystery and strange confusion of the second are complex and conversation-starting, and while an initial reading might find the film to be rather simple, it is in this narrative simplicity where Weerasethakul’s filmography is able to make the grandest statements about the human experience.

If cinema is about dreaming, then Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives might be the ultimate film, or at least the ultimate statement on cinema, for what is more dreamlike than the remembrance of past lives? There are a number of seemingly unrelated strands in this film, each of which ostensibly represents one of Boonmee’s previous existences. It is difficult to tie these narratives together, even after having seen the film multiple times, but that is absolutely fine, for the purpose of the film is not to provide a cohesive biography of Boonmee but simply to dream, to show us the magic that can exist in the world around us and in the stories that we create. It does not force relationships between the multiple narratives, instead allowing us to formulate the relationships ourselves, engaging the viewer in the storytelling process. Though many were surprised by the film’s winning of the Palme d’Or over competition that included Another Year and Of Gods and Men, the decision has certainly gone down as one of the Cannes jury’s best in recent memory.

Weerasethakul’s best film is the only one out of his past five (including Cemetery of Splendour) to not play at Cannes, instead finding a spot in competition at the Venice Film Festival. To say too much about Syndromes and a Century would be to spoil one of the most befuddling, frustrating, maddening, and ultimately rewarding cinematic experiences of all-time. There is an unsettling feeling throughout the film not only that everything that happens has happened before and will happen again, but also that the characters are aware of this fact. The line between fiction and reality is crossed multiple times, often unnoticeably. Calling it self-aware would be a reductive and patronizing oversimplification, and calling it a fever dream ignores its calculated insanity. With Syndromes and a Century, Weerasethakul made his grandest and most complex statement on the nature of narrative while keeping it his subtlest. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and Tropical Malady might be the most entertaining, but Syndromes and a Century is the most mysterious and powerful of his works. Weerasethakul’s filmography seeks to unlock the full potential of cinema, and in Syndromes and a Century, he succeeds majestically.

Another week, another streaming service getting into the theatrical release business. This time it is “Now Streaming” mainstay MUBI, as announced on Variety, as they have secured the UK and Ireland rights to distribute festival darling Arabian Nights. As part of the deal, shortly after the theatrical release, MUBI will do what they do best and make the film available on their streaming service. With Netflix, Amazon and now MUBI in on the theatrical game, the writing on the wall has been outlined in permanent marker—the way we consume movies will continue to change in the coming years. And now check out the titles new to the various streaming sites below.

Netflix

Zero Motivation (Talya Lavie, 2014)

One of the best films in the recent run out of Israel, Zero Motivation is a darkly comedic take on the intense situation in the Middle East. In the vein of MASH, this is a wartime film without any war, replacing bullets and bombs with a group of young women bored to death by the menial office work they are charged with as part of their required military service. Perhaps the film’s strongest attribute is its balance between sometimes silly, sometimes droll situational humor with the very serious backdrop—it always understands that there are real stakes at play here, even with a group of characters plucked from the Israeli cast of Girls. When we picked it as one the best films from 2014 that you may have missed, we called the film a “confidently pleasant experience, one that’s surprisingly funny and likable.”

Other titles new to Netflix this week:
The Guest (Adam Wingard, 2014)
Set Fire to the Stars (Andy Goddard, 2014)
Teacher of the Year (Jason Strouse, 2014)

Fandor

Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami, 1997)

A much different type of film from the Middle East is Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry. The film involves a middle-aged Iranian man seeking to find someone who will help in burying him after he commits suicide. Much of the film takes place inside of Mr. Badii’s truck as he talks with them about the unique job he is hiring. This structure gives the film a slow, meandering pace, but much rewarding philosophical thought. Today, the film might be most famous for its 1-star review from Roger Ebert (who, interestingly, loved the similarly themed Goodbye Solo). Taste of Cherry is presented by Fandor as part of its Criterion Picks exploring some of the best independent films of the 1990s—a few of which are highlighted below. As with many Fandor streaming selections, it is available for a limited time. If you want to catch up with Taste of Cherry, or any of the 1990s picks, you will have to do so by August 2.

Other titles new to Fandor this week:
An Angel at My Table (Jane Campion, 1990)
Emporte-moi (Léa Pool, 1999)
Ratcatcher (Lynne Ramsay, 1999)
Rhymes for Young Ghouls (Jeff Barnaby, 2013)
Schizopolis (Steven Soderbergh, 1996)

MUBI

Poetry (Lee Chang-dong, 2010)

Poetry is a beautiful and poignant film from one of most emotionally resonant storytellers working in today’s world cinema. The film is a character profile of an elderly woman who begins showing the early signs of Alzheimer’s—the title coming from a poetry class the woman begins taking in order to maintain her mental strength. Of the filmmakers coming from the South Korean New Wave, Lee works less within the extreme genres and more from the country’s melodramatic traditions. Poetry does blend in some elements of crime and violence, but is much more a simple character study.

Other titles new to MUBI this week:
Barking Dogs Never Bite (Bong Joon-ho, 2000)
Casanova ’70 (Mario Monicelli, 1965)
The Ruling Class (Peter Medak, 1972)
The Stunt Man (Richard Rush, 1980)
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010)

iTunes and VOD

Veep (Season 4)

Hitting iTunes for rental or purchase this week is the wonderful fourth season of the HBO comedy series Veep. This season saw Selena Meyer and her ragtag team (including new cast member Hugh Laurie as her perhaps too popular running mate) hitting the campaign trail, ending in a shocking election night. Episode #9 “Testimony” is a particular highlight—the episode is completely made from the “found footage” taken from a congressional committee hearing. An homage to the landmark McCarthy hearings documentary Point of Order, “Testimony” gives a new for to Veep‘s biting satire. With the fate of Selena Meyer up in the air, the show’s brilliant creator, Armando Iannucci, is stepping away as executive producer, writer, and director.

Other titles new to VOD this week:
Before We Go (Chris Evans, 2014)
Child 44 (Daniel Espinosa, 2015)
Felix and Meira (Maxime Giroux, 2014)
House of Lies (Season 4)
Lucky Stiff (Christopher Ashley, 2014)

Hello again, and welcome to another episode of “The Swap.” For those who don’t know, “The Swap” is a podcast where a guest and I recommend a film to each other related to a specific topic or theme. There’s only one rule: The movie we choose has to be one the other has never seen.

In this episode, my guest is longtime friend, and Way Too Indie contributor, Blake Ginithan. We decided to select from the best films of the 21st century list from “They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?” After talking about the list itself and how it influenced our viewing habits over the years, we give our thoughts on the recommended films we saw. Blake assigned me Spike Lee’s 25th Hour and I gave him the homework of watching Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Check out how we reacted to our recent viewings.

Catch up by listening to Episode 1, and let us know your thoughts and suggestions for future episodes. If you’d like to be a guest on a future edition of “The Swap”, contact us!

In the spirit of the Cannes Film Festival having recently announced this year’s winners, the staff here at Way Too Indie have decided to compile our favorite films that have previously won an award at the Cannes Film Festival. In order to give ourselves the most freedom, we voted on films that have won any award at the festival, instead of just ones that have won the top prize of the Palme d’Or. Not only are these films our favorite Cannes winners, but these are films that all film lovers should make an effort to watch.

Top 10 Cannes Winners

#10 – Dogtooth

Dogtooth is nothing if not original. In 2009, the film was the winner of the Un Certain Regard category, a selection of film at Cannes that tend to be of the “edgier” fare, though surprisingly it did go on to earn a Best Foreign Language nomination at the Oscars. The film is about a brother and two sisters that are completely fenced in from the outside world by their over-protective parents. The parents instill fear into their children by telling them the cat they sometimes see in the backyard is a vicious creature that they should stay away from. Pairing well with the unique story is the brilliant camera work that carefully keeps everything in the center of the frame. This fixed camera technique means that you are only allowed to see what is inside the frame, detaining the viewer similar to how the high-wall fence around the house detains the children. Dogtooth is a wonderfully disturbing satire on censorship. [Dustin]

Dogtooth movie review

#9 – Taste of Cherry

Abbas Kiarostami is one of the most unique and poetic directors in film today, and Taste of Cherry is as good an example of his vision as any. Mr. Badii, middle-aged man, scours Tehran looking for someone who will aid him in killing himself. He is willing to offer quite a sum of cash to any who will help, but to his surprise, no one is willing to carry that weight. Badii’s potential accomplices try desperately to talk him down from the ledge, but he’s a stubborn one. Winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1997, Kiarostami’s life-affirming masterpiece is one of the great indie treasures of the ‘90s. [Bernard]

#8 – Apocalypse Now

Francis Ford Coppola’s film is one of the best ever made about man’s decent into hell. Taking place during the Vietnam War, Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is tasked with exterminating (with extreme prejudice) a Colonel (Marlon Brando) who has lost his mind. Traveling up the Nung River on a boat into Combodia, Willard is joined by a small group of soldiers who all seem to be at their breaking point. Coppola fills his film with exciting, visceral images that will haunt you long after the film finishes. Sure some of it is extreme, in one scene has an ox hacked to death with a machete in another Willard’s boat passes a slew of decapitated human heads on large sticks, but certainly you cannot deny how powerful the film is. Dennis Hopper, Robert “I love the smell of Napalm in the Morning” Duvall, Harrison Ford and Laurence Fishburne populate this frightening film. While the film is definitely hard to watch at times, it is one that is not to be missed. Coppola’s vision of the Vietnam War is the best that cinema has ever produced; unrelenting, disgusting, nightmarish, deplorable, fascinating all at the same time. [Blake]

#7 – The Piano

Told with a sweeping paintbrush of emotion, Jane Campion’s 1993 Palme d’Or winner, is a haunting film. Mute Ada arrives from Scotland on the shores of 19th century New Zealand to enter into an arranged marriage. With only her daughter Flora to interpret her sign language, Ada prefers to communicate by playing her piano. So when her husband-to-be decides the piano isn’t worth the trip through the swamps to their home, she’s understandably upset. Their neighbor Baines retrieves the piano and bargains with Ada to earn it back by teaching him to play; lessons that quickly turn into something more. Holly Hunter truly earned her Oscar that year, making each stroke of the piano keys more sincerely intense than any line uttered (for only her “mind’s voice” is heard in narration), and for fogging glasses with a sexually charged romance with a blue-tattooed Harvey Keitel. Anna Paquin made history as the second youngest actress to win an Oscar for her role as Flora, the contrarily verbose and imaginative daughter to silent Ada. Resonating with imagery, one almost feels damp as the characters traipse through New Zealand’s unsettled land. And accompanied by a flawless score written by Michael Nyman, a librettist who understands how to allow a piano to do most the speaking, The Piano is evocative and unforgettable. [Ananda]

#6 – Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

As he prepares to die from kidney failure, Uncle Boonmee goes to the countryside with his family to live out his final days. Ghosts, monkey creatures and princesses are only a few of the oddities that pop up throughout Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s masterpiece, a film about moving on to the afterlife that feels like it exists between our world and the next. Despite its bizarre content and free-flowing narrative, including a 15 minute detour involving sex with a catfish, the film walked away with the Palme D’Or in 2010. It was one of the few years at Cannes where the Palme was given to the most deserving film in competition. [CJ]

#5 – The Seventh Seal

Still (for my money) the best example of cinema at its most lyrical and literary, Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal is one of cinema’s most essential works. When it won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1957, it alerted the entire film community of the genius of Bergman and the silver-screen titan that is Max Von Sydow. Set in an exquisitely realized middle ages, a knight on the way home from the crusades engages in a high-stakes chess game with death himself (one of cinema’s most enduring images) as he treks a plague-ridden countryside with his partner, the squire. Bergman used The Seventh Seal, like many of his other films, as a way to visually articulate his inner-struggle with mortality and God’s muteness. Says the knight, “I want God to put out his hand, show his face, speak to me. I cry out to him in the dark, but there is no one there.” [Bernard]

#4 – The Tree of Life

Terrence Malick’s The Tree Of Life took home the coveted Palme d’Or in 2011 for his visual masterpiece of a film. Despite winning over many critics and picking up Oscar nominations, the film had a difficult time winning over the general audience and has the box office numbers to prove it. But Malick is one of those directors who is in the rare position to not depend on commercial success, which allows him to make such daring and experimental films such as this. The Tree Of Life is a mesmerizing cinematic experience that contains some of the most visually stunning scenes you will ever see in film. It is too bad its theatrical run was cut short, this is a film that deserves to be seen on the big screen. [Dustin]

The Tree Of Life movie review

#3 – Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver was amid the first few films that kick started De Niro’s career, and one that won the Palme d’Or award in 1976. Argued to be one of the greatest films of all time by Roger Ebert, it holds great cultural and historical significance to American history in regards to the post-Vietnam era. De Niro’s character, Travis Bickle is a war veteran who received honourable discharge from the U.S Marines. He is an extremely lonely and depressive man whose chronic insomnia allows him to take a job as a taxi driver. Travis soon finds himself being overwhelmed and angered by the street crime and prostitution he is witnessing on a daily basis and turns this built up frustration into training his body and his mind into a man capable of doing anything. Taxi Driver is a great classic that has imprinted profoundly within film history and definitely worth a watch. [Amy]

#2 – Pulp Fiction

Resevoir Dogs was a hit for Quentin Tarantino in 1992, but it wasn’t utnil 2 years later when he premiered his highly influential game changing masterpiece Pulp Fiction to the world. The film shot Tarantino into the stratosphere of filmdom’s elite and to countless year-end awards. Pulp Fiction tells three tales of blood, mayhem and hilarity. Two hit men, their boss’ wife, the prize fighter they hunt and a special briefcase that is an enigma unto itself. Tarantino and screenwriting partner Roger Avery expertly weave these three stories from back to front to middle to the back again. Tarantino’s dialogue glides off the actor’s tongues like an ice cube in the heat. A career best performance from John Travolta leads the numerous supporting turns from Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Eric Stolz, Frank Whaley, Harvey Keitel, Ving Rhames and Christopher Walken in a single scene stealing cameo. This is one of the most invigorating film going experiences that cinema has to offer; one that only becomes richer and richer the more it’s viewed. [Blake]

#1 – Oldboy

It is unbelievably difficult to summarize this film in just a few short sentences, seeing as the storyline is so complex and vastly different to anything you may be expecting. Oldboy focuses on the painfully playful torment and torture of Dae-su Oh who has been kidnapped and imprisoned for fifteen years without any known reason. His mission, once released, is to find his captor and confront him. As Western popular film audiences have only been introduced to Asian cinema through the horror genre, Oldboy is an excellent example of modern East Asian cinema. Oldboy was a phenomenal stylistic achievement and along with the soundtrack and intense original storyline makes it essential viewing to any film fan. [Amy]