Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Fever Room
Performance
novembernov 5 – 13
© Chai Siris, Courtesy of Kick the Machine Films ©
Conception and montage, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Director of photography, Chatchai Suban
With Jenjira Pongpas, Banlop Lomnoi
Assistant director, Sompot Chidgasornpongse
Production director, Chai Siris
Artistitic and visual Director, Rueangrit Suntisuk
Lighting design, Pornpan Arayaveerasid
Camera assistant, Thanayos Roopkhajorn
Sound, Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, Koichi Shimizu
Sound montage, Chalermrat Kaweewattana
Post-production, Siripun Sangjun Senior
Colorist, Passakorn Yaisiri
Digital colorimetry digital, Chaitawat Thrisansri
Digitalization, Nuttacha Khajornkaitsakul
Post-production supervisor, Lee Chatametikool
A Kick the Machine Films production, Thailand & Asian Arts Theatre, South Korea // In association with Nanterre-Amandiers, centre dramatique national ; Festival d’Automne à Paris // With support from d’agnès b. // First performed on 4th Juin 2015 at the Asian Arts Theatre (Gwangju, South Korea)
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, one of the most innovative, mesmerizing figures in cinema today, makes his first incursion into the world of theatre with a “performance-projection”, based on his latest film Cemetery of Splendour. Jenjira, the filmmaker’s fetich actress, plays the role of Jen, a housewife who is due to have an operation. In hospital, her dreams intermingle with those of Itt, a soldier in a state of slumber, an inhabitant of a country deprived of light. Elsewhere, a group of youngsters ventures out onto the Mekong river. Others explore a cave in search of a possible habitat for an uncertain future... In the course of extended dreams and musings, each of them patches up their wounds, and takes refuge in sleep, or the place of a secret resistance. Fever Room unfurls in a twilight world, in a space on the confines of reality and dream, obscurity and light. On the stage, filmed images blend into the staging, plunging spectators into a disorientating, hypnotic mental and sensorial experience. Picking up on the political resonances of his last film, the piece also gives us the outline of a country on the brink of collapse, in search of a future. This intense performance takes us far beyond the frontiers of cinema, and plunges us deep into the filmmaker’s dream-like, sensual universe. A world in which invisible forces rear their heads amidst a reality of the most prosaic kind. In the theatre’s cavern, magic takes effect, fever rises, and shadows come to life once again.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul retrospective
LE CHAMPO – 51, rue des Écoles 75005 Paris
Find out more at lilianesloimovits@gmail.com
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