Sightlines · reception
How Cemetery of Splendor was received
2015 · Apichatpong Weerasethakul · Cemetery of Splendor on Sightlines
The arc
Rapturously received at Cannes 2015 (though fans grumbled it was 'relegated' to Un Certain Regard after Apichatpong's Palme d'Or), it topped critics' year-end lists and has since settled in near the summit of best-of-the-2010s polls as a slow-cinema landmark.
What’s debated
The eternal Apichatpong divide: is drifting off during it a failure of the film or the whole point — transcendent dream-state or two hours of watching people nap?
Its footprint
The color-shifting neon tubes glowing over the sleeping soldiers' beds became one of the decade's most screenshotted arthouse images, a Letterboxd aesthetic touchstone; the director has even leaned into the sleep discourse, saying he doesn't mind if audiences doze.
Where it stands
A fixture of 2010s best-of-decade lists and a 'serious cinephile' credential, though most fans still recommend starting Apichatpong elsewhere and working up to it.
Did you know? Apichatpong refused to release the film in his native Thailand, saying he wouldn't submit it to the military government's censors — and declared it would likely be his last film shot in the country (his next, Memoria, was made in Colombia).