Eternamente Sua

Please do not feel sorry for anyone associated with trying to make something beautiful. A film does not need to have a beginning or an ending, or an elaborate story, it can simply contain moments in time, it can be a visual sensation, this art form, like all, needs not be strictly defined. If you found Blissfully Yours boring, fair game. But this magnificent film put a smile on my face for much of the second half, because I felt what it meant for me to feel, this film is 1000% feeling, so it's great for those who can feel. When we step into nature we can truly suspend time. "Roong, what time is it?", "Wait, I'm still having fun."

An unknown author once said that "love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end." Blissfully Yours, the second feature from Thai director Apitchatpong Weerasethakul, is a film about ecstasy that happens outside of time. It is roughly divided into two parts - one ordinary, the other transcendent and is without a typical plot or character development. Rather, it speaks directly to the human spirit, to its capacity to transcend the "stuff" of life and reach for the eternal.

Blissfully Yours begins in the small Thai city of Khon Kaen as Min (Min Oo), an apparently mute young man with a skin condition visits a doctor together with his girlfriend Roong (Kanokporn Tongaram) and Orn (Jenjira Jansuda), an older woman who has lost a child by drowning. Shot in the offices of the director's doctor parents, we soon learn that Min is a Burmese immigrant who is in Thailand illegally and is seeking a work permit from the doctor in order to remain in the country and that Orn has been hired to look after him. Without proper ID, however, the doctor refuses to cooperate.

The film then moves to the souvenir factory where Roong works on an assembly line worker hand painting Disney figurines, and then to Orn who prepares a skin cream for Min by chopping vegetables. There is also a glimpse of the office where Orn's husband works. About forty five minutes into Blissfully Yours, credits suddenly appear on the screen, we hear a Thai popular song in the background, and we know that we are in unfamiliar territory. Taking time off from work because of an illusory illness, Roong and Min drive to the countryside for an afternoon picnic recorded in long, uninterrupted takes and the film never looks back. Stress fades away as scenes of nature replace the familiar images of city life. Roong and Min walk through dense jungle to reach an opening in the woods with a clear view of mountains and streams.

Not much is said as the camera lingers on Roong and Min as they eat berries, splash in the cool waters, and engage in erotic activities that seem to be initiated by Roong alone as she caresses Min's sexual organ in full camera view. There is much attention given to bodies and their sensitivity to touch especially when we learn that Min's rash is both physical and political. Through a voice over and doodling shown on the screen, we find out that he has been hiding from the Burmese police for an undisclosed reason, has a son in Rangoon, and may have picked up his skin rash while hiding in a septic tank. It is also hinted that Roong is a member of the Karen ethnic group, a hill tribe that have fought for independence from Burma since 1949.

Weerasethakul pushes viewer patience to the limit as shots of Roong snuggling up to the passive Min take several minutes to unfold and one is reminded of Werner Erhard's assertion that boredom is a "high space" to be in. Orn, who is also enjoying sex with a male companion, has her tryst interrupted when her lover's bike is stolen and she makes her way through the forest to join Min and Roong. As Roong and Min lie on their backs looking up to the sky sharing moments of peace and spiritual awareness, Orn lies alone and begins to cry. It is a moment of quiet isolation filled with mystery and magic as this visionary, sexually explicit, and sensual work of art becomes blissfully ours forever.

This is a film-school level concept with film-school level execution. Some of the scenes are so long and static I half expected a screensaver would kick in. Some people in this website have been trying to make sense of some of the scenes in this film, but I think those conclusions are illusory or wishful thinking, as is much modern art criticism. The real fact is, the film is objectively very poor.

Yes, this is certainly an art film, that is, it's meant to make us think about life rather than simply to entertain. The problem is, it is way too self-consciously an art film, the story is drearily paced (as if trying to be the most artsy film ever made by dint of its sheer slowness) and the execution is quite undistinguished (as if to say it is so artsy that it doesn't even have to try). Nothing is revealed by the film, no deep or hidden meanings - possibly no meaning at all except to show a few odd people having a rather odd sort of afternoon in the forest. Happy for some, sad for others. Nothing to make us think, except try to figure out what was the point of it all. OK it's art, but let's be straight about this: it's extremely poor art.

All of the characters are unendearing, and as we must assume that the director is not trying to disengage us from the movie completely, it must only be because the most basic elements of film-making are being eschewed (this may be done consciously, but for the most part I fear not). The acting is wooden (witness - oh deary me - the factory manager, who may well be a real factory manager, but who has obviously never been in front of a camera in his life), the dialogue is mumbled, and almost every scene is amazingly dislikeable. There is a voice-over at times from the Burmese character that adds nothing but confusion as to who (or what), the film is about. I felt nothing at all for the characters, but very sorry at times for the actors.

The whole thing finally grinds to a virtual standstill in horribly overlong scenes towards the end in which the characters emotions are summed up. The intention here seems to be to impress the images upon us by burning them physically onto our retinas, but basically, artlessness does not make good art, and these scenes just unimpress and leave us cold, as does the whole thing. I live in Thailand and watched this film with my Thai girlfriend and she can confirm that the movie did not provide any insights into the Thai character or Thai way of life. It is just a stick thrown into the air.

This cannot be what the director intended. No offense to him for having a go, but we can all do just as well with a camcorder and a few friends. The real laughing stocks are the film festival organisers who, like the modern art collectors who pay a fortune for bits of trash, were duped into thinking that this, being a slow film from an exotic country, was absolutely just the thing for us to sit and ponder over at their film festival.

Blissfully Yours as the film is being called in the U.S. is not a perfect film. That said, my initial reaction fades as I re-examine the film in my mind's eye. It has an ethereal quality, especially the second two-thirds of the film (after the credits finally roll). The film plays with the whole idea of what is film. When does a film begin?

Initially you feel as if you have just walked in on the personal lives of the characters. You are quietly viewing their life, or maybe you're just along for the ride. This is especially driven home while in the car with two of the main characters, Roong and Min, as they drive around. At times you are viewing them from the outside, at others inside the car watching them, and at still others, just looking behind at where they have come from. In a way it is in these sequences that the director gives you clues about how to view the overall film. The first third, prior to the credits, is showing you as a viewer where these three characters come from.

Once the credits roll we only see one other person (ok, we do see the back of another person on a scooter) besides the three main characters. At this point it becomes their film. Their afternoon in the sun. In the jungle, away from all of life's troubles, it is a moment of bliss. It allows Min to forget for a moment his skin problem, and his life left behind in Burma. It allows Roong to forget for a moment her regimented life as a factory girl, laboriously painting the same mass produced items, over, and over again. And it allows Orn the opportunity to finally let go and relax; to come to terms with her own past; wherein, she may have had a child that drowned, and has been unable to forgive herself.

The film is deliberately slow paced, and yet I never once felt bored, or disinterested in what I was watching. It is not filled with action, but with feeling. It is a film about release. The letting go of our worldly cares for a blissful moment in the sun. I recommend you take a lazy afternoon and see Blissfully Yours. Let it help you escape into the jungle of your own mind.

An earlier film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. To pause for a second, it is amazing how relatively easy it is these days to watch cinema from all over the world. That alone constitutes something akin to bliss for me at least.

I would say seek out other films by Weerasethakul first, and then proceed to this one if you wish. There is an enchanted Thai forest here as well as in "Uncle Boonme." His admiration (not quite the right word) for middle-age women seems to be frequent, here it is juxtaposed with an almost Romeo and Juliet, or Adam and Eve, love story. Roong seems so young, and Min is clearly a visitor in her heart, and her country.

There is some sentiment for the director on the "illegal alien" (always a bit strange phrase), Min is minimally communicative in the scenes with the two dominating women, is given voice-over monologues and over-layed sketchings.

Min's skin is featured in the film, don't let it trouble you. But it seems his skin is rejecting Thailand. I guess if this film says anything it's that bliss is fleeting if not even misunderstood. The lovers try to find a place remove from the Orn-ery every day grind, a place between two countries, a sweet safe place off the map.

However, every picnic has ants waiting for it.