Blissfully Yours

That's not a regular film but rather an unique example of art film. It's more an impression of the director then a drama or romance or anything else. The way how Weerasethakul makes movies one can love or hate.

The main character is a Burmese refugee, Min, who seems to be in love with a Thai young woman,Roong. While she's at work an older woman, Orn, takes care about Min. Once Min and Roong go for a picnic into the forest, where they meet Orn. The background of the movie is a nationwide crackdown on illegal Burmese immigrants in Thailand.

Slow shots, beautiful landscapes, strange plot construction, mysterious details, and somehow erotic and unclear relationship with two women and young man creates a great but very specific kind of cinema.It's a beautiful impression of human relationships.

The hype surrounding Apichatpong seems to me unwarranted. I am reminded of Roger Ebert's comments on Abbas Kiarostami and being utterly unconvinced of the value of his films.

First, there is no story. As soon as a story might be emerging, "Joe" (as he likes to be called these days) moves to something utterly unrelated. He has said that he conceives of nature as an opportunity for the characters to do some self-reflection. This sounds good, but there are no characters to speak of, and except for Orn, no acting whatsoever. No information is given about what they might be reflecting about, and story elements are allowed to vanish (like the distant gunshot).

The slowness itself didn't bother me, but the much-heralded Apichatpong can learn something from Tony Bui, whose first feature film "Three Seasons" is FAR better at the languid development than this. Or look at any of Ousman Sembene's films for the skillful use of dreadfully unskillful non-actors. There is just no excuse, in my mind, for such a self-important and ultimately inept use of non-actors.

User federovsky's comments are to me particularly perceptive. I give it 3; at least he is giving this some thought.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul is exemplary in pointing to new ways of telling cinematic stories. Here he presents us with a beautiful canvas of cultural impressionism and profound poetic daubings.

Certainly not boring. Certainly not pretentious. And if you find it slow, then you need to readjust your perception of what 'narrative' can do. Slow is a relative term. The inference from some commentators is that slow equals languid and thus dull. But this is anything but languid or dull. It is a beautiful rumination, a poem of pace and intrigue and voluptuous sensitivity.

Sit back, relax and don't rush (where is everyone rushing too, anyway?). Be with the moment and enjoy the art of a magnificent filmmaker.

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.

This second feature of Apichatpong Weerasethakul is more an experience than a story-dependent film. Something strange happens to your feeling for time while watching this two-hour long film: time seems suspended, absent. When 45 minutes into the film the opening credits suddenly appear, they come as a bit of a shock, because by then you are irresistibly drawn into the non-story.

The way this film treats time is reminiscent of several films by Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang: long, drawn-out scenes, in real-time or almost, and with little or no dialogue. Also the relationship between the main characters brings to mind Tsai's films, more in particular 'Aiqing Wansui' with its triangular relationship.

'Blissfully Yours' is an impressionist rendering of a lazy afternoon in the mountainous border region between Thailand and Myanmar. Min is an illegal immigrant from Myanmar, who takes his girlfriend Roong for a pick-nick. They are joined later by Orn, an older woman employed by Roong to take care of Min.

One of the main ingredients in impressionism is the sun, and the sun plays an important though discrete role in this film also. It is present everywhere in the second part of the film, softly filtered through the canopy of the jungle, but also as a threat to Min who has a skin disease and was told to stay out of the sun.

What also filters through in the film is the political issue of Myanmarese immigrants in northern Thailand. The first half hour shows the three main characters consulting a doctor about Min's skin condition. Min, who has no papers, doesn't speak - perhaps because the doctor would refuse to treat him if she knew her patient was an illegal alien and not a Thai. And the doctor's refusal to give Min a 'fit-to-work' certificate unless he can produce official papers is typical of the administrative vicious circle so many illegal immigrants are caught in all around the world.

This makes for a stark contrast between the first and second part of the film, between grim reality and a dreamy, lazy afternoon that is bathed in light.

American audiences may feel uneasy seeing sex scenes that are neither censored, clinical, beautified or violent. Not recommended for viewers who require car chases and shoot-outs, or for those who don't like ants.