Raising genius

Indie filmmaker and video artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul has often referred to his works as his "children". Indeed, most of his films credit him with a "conceived by" line, rather than the traditional "directed by".

A new book, covering the 38-year-old director's life and career up to now, can be considered the equivalent of Dr Benjamin Spock's best-selling "Baby and Child Care" instruction manual.

"Apichatpong Weerasethakul" is the guidebook to understanding the artist, and offers hints on your care and feeding as you watch his films.

Where did Apichatpong come from? Is his nickname "Joe" or "Joei"? Why did the opening credits of his "Blissfully Yours" finally roll 45 minutes into the film? Why are his movies "Tropical Malady" and "Syndromes and a Century" split into halves? Did he really make a movie called "The Adventure of Iron Pussy"? Why was "Syndromes and a Century" censored in Thailand?

The answers are in the book.

The 200-page volume fills a major gap in the sparse offerings of English-language reading material on Thai cinema, which is only fitting because Apichatpong looms large in Thai cinema history.

Editor James Quandt gives an overview of Apichatpong's life and career. There are also heavily footnoted essays from scholar Benedict Anderson, art curator Karen Newman and critics Kong Rithdee and Tony Rayns.

The first chapter, "Two Letters", is by cultural critic Mark Cousins and firebrand actress Tilda Swinton. The two trade thoughts about Apichatpong, both having been severely bitten by his bug after they saw "Tropical Malady" ("Sud Pralad") at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, where it won a jury prize.

One of the most valuable chapters is by Apichatpong himself: "Ghosts in the Darkness". Apichatpong recalls his childhood growing up in urban Khon Kaen. His parents were doctors. Some of his most cherished memories are of going to the cinema.

It's as much a history of him and how he became enamoured by movies as it as a history of Thai cinema. He cites 1978's disaster movie "Paendinwipayoak" by Sompot Saengduenchai as a major influence, as well as 1979's romantic melodrama "Plae Kao" by Cherd Songsri.

Quandt gives a blow-by-blow of each of Apichatpong's features, going back to his 2000 debut, the black-and-white "exquisite corpse" documentary "Mysterious Object at Noon" ("Dokfa Nai Meuman").

"Mysterious Object" became a cliche that film critics used to describe Apichatpong's work. Then his next feature "Blissfully Yours" ("Sud Sanaeha") won the Un Certain Regard competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002.

From then on, "blissful" was term cropped up often in writing about the filmmaker's work.

Connections are pointed out, like a blue umbrella from "Blissfully" that pops up elsewhere, or the corpse of a man, clad only in underwear briefs, who's seen in "Tropical Malady" but was very much alive in an earlier movie.

There's also a survey of his dozens of shorts, loops and video installations for art galleries - his real bread and butter since feature films are costly endeavours.

His first short, 1994's "0016643225059", was inspired by phone calls he made to his mother while he was studying at the Art Institute of Chicago.

One of his most recent, the horror documentary "Vampire", was commissioned last year for a Louis Vuitton travelling exhibit. It was shown last weekend as part of the "Bangkok … Bananas!!" arts festival.

Another short is "Mobile Men", made last year for the United Nations for its 22-segment "Stories on Human Rights".

You can watch that one on YouTube.

Despite his gentle, thoughtful nature, Apichatpong is an uncompromising, polarising figure in world cinema and in Thai society. The book offers insights as to why.