The Political Asleep: Non-Traumatic Spectrality in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cemetery of Splendour

Abstract

In this paper, I analyse Cemetery of Splendour (2015) to argue that spectrality is addressed therein differently from the way it is in the other feature films by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. As a methodological framework, I will particularly rely on Fredric Jameson’s idea of “cognitive mapping” and focus, thereby, mainly on the film’s geopolitical implications as well as on its self-referentiality. In regard to the former, the specificities of Isan region in the Northeast of Thailand will prove very relevant (as in other films by the same director). In regard to the latter, I will have to draw as well on Jameson’s theories of film enunciation (somewhat related to Jean-Pierre Oudart’s “suture theory”) as key to the film’s political subtext.