Blissfully Yours

Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Year Released: 2002
Rating: 2.5

You just have to give a guy like Weerasethakul (hereafter "Joe") a little bit of kudos for daring to make films that go so completely against the grain of modern cinema - it's been a long time since a talented young filmmaker's been so oblivious towards convention in any way. When I said Mysterious Object at Noon deserved to be shown in an art museum on a continuous loop - and this too - I'm not being insulting: as a matter of fact, to me, that's high praise. Like I hated assigning a grade to Mysterious Object, so I'm completely torn here, in love with the 'movie's' refusal to provide any link to its purpose, but also frustrated with "Joe's" obvious coyness. However, since something like this begs for some kind of interpretation, here's mine: the credits, which appear a good forty minutes in, actually divide the film in two - the 'city scenes' which involve work, chaos and commerce, and the 'forest scenes' which involve your three basic human needs (eating, sleeping, fucking). The girl, we discover later, plans to leave her job painting Looney Tunes figures and the man, who has some bizarre skin ailment (a side effect of modern living?), can't even get a job - the reason he was at the doctor's in the beginning was to get healed and then get a permit to work. The 'division,' therefore, is between capitalism and scenes about non-monetary earthly paradise - you can sleep in bliss for only so long before you have to return to 'normality' and slave.