'Cemetery of Splendour' - Movie Review

A group of soldiers with some form of sleeping sickness are moved to a former schoolhouse in northeastern Thailand. Our point of view is Jen, a middle-aged housewife who volunteers at the hospital and tends to the soldiers. She becomes attached to one named Itt, who sometimes manages to stay awake for an hour at a time.

The pacing is like molasses in winter - although that's not a very Thai concept, and this is a very Thai movie. Jen prays at a local temple - and soon encounters the two princesses the temple was built for. Re-incarnated? It's not explained. A young psychic spends her days at the hospital, reading the dreams of the soldiers out to their loved ones. She and Jen connect and the medium channels Itt and his dreams.

Polar opposite to the Thai films I'm familiar with (the bone-crunching martial arts of Tony Jaa), this shows the peaceful side of the Thai personality. But it also shows the very spiritual/mystical side that's so far outside the North American experience as to make essentially no sense.

Director Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a critical darling, but this didn't work for me.