Sensuous, mysterious and aglow with soulful humour, the latest from Palme d’Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) blurs lines between the living, the dead and those hovering somewhere in between, while celebrating the splendor of human connection.

In northeast Thailand, a group of soldiers fall ill after working at an excavation site and slip into what threatens to be perpetual slumber. They are sent to a temporary hospital where their inexplicable affliction is studied and their dormant bodies tended to. Jen, a good-hearted middle-aged woman, volunteers to help care for the soldiers, becoming especially attached to one of them, the handsome Itt. Also working at the hospital is Keng, a psychic who helps the soldiers’ family members contact their loved ones. While Jen and Keng go about their duties, Itt’s notebook is found—and within its cryptic statements and diagrams may be clues regarding the origins of the sleeping sickness and its relationship to the ancient past.
Cemetery of Splendor digs deep into the supernatural roots of Thailand’s rich mystical tradition, where time does not obey linear rules and there is little distinction between dream and reality. Yet this playful film doesn’t feel overly esoteric: Weerasethakul’s cinema is rife with things we can see, hear, taste and touch. – Andres Castillo