Top 200 Most Anticipated Films for 2014: #116. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cemetery of Kings

Cemetery of Kings

Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Writer: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Producers: Simon Field, Keith Griffiths, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Jenjira Widner, Banlop

It surprisingly takes an international film community (coin coming from several sources) to keep Palme d’Or winner Thai Joe (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) in business of feature filmmaking but it takes very little to motivate him as an artist: his generous output is visible in art installations, short films, to medium-sized items such as Mekong Hotel. While this appears to raid from his chest of films from his last decade and certainly brings a vague sense of familiarity with performance, obsessions, and use of physical borders, Cemetery of Kings might be the last of film to come out of a certain comfort zone.

Gist: A small town in Thailand, twenty-seven soldiers come down with a strange case of sleeping sickness. An abandoned elementary school is converted to accommodate them. Jenjira Widner, a middle-age Thai lady who is married to Frank, a retired soldier from the US, volunteers to tend to the sleeping soldiers. She takes special interest in Itta who has no visiting relatives.

Release Date: There has been a mention about a summer 2014 production start date and I know what you readers might be thinking…even if the film was in the can and ready for the fall, he’ll wait until Cannes the following year. While this certainly rings true, I think Thai Joe could return to Venice as he did most recently with Future Reloaded and back in 2006 with Syndromes and a Century.

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