Film Info
Mekong Hotel

Film Information

Exhibition Title	Mekong Hotel
Director	Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Country
Year	2012
Format	DCP
Colour	Color
Duration	57'

Cast:

Jenjira Pongpas, Maiyatan Techaparn, Sakda Kaewbuadee, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Chai Bhatana

Credits:

G, F, E, P: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
S: Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr
M: Chai Bhatana
PE: Simon Field, Keith Griffiths
CP: Kick the Machine Films, Illuminations Films

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Synopsis

Apichatpong has a reputation for making films that defy easy definitions and categorizations. After his Palme d’Or winner Uncle Boonmee, he delivers yet another spellbinding hybrid. An effortlessly eerie and sensuous featurette that barely clocks in at one hour of length, Mekong Hotel has been described as a crossbreed between fiction and documentary, as a rehearsal for a film that won’t be made, as well as a daring political and historical meditation on the memories evoked by the border between Thailand and Laos. However, the most direct way to access and apprehend his film is probably the one hinted at in its opening. There, Apichatpong and his composer Chai Bhatana rehearse and muse over the guitar score that seamlessly flows into the rest of the film, and permeates it like a soothing soundscape –possibly mirroring the quiet flow of the Mekong river. This way, Mekong Hotel shapes up as a musical fantasy where, on a lazy late afternoon, Apichatpong summons up a dreamlike atmosphere and the ghosts who inhabit it, as prompted by Bhatana’s music. Eventually, all thematic and visual tributaries converge in a delightful, quietly ecstatic ending. PB