Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Sleep Cinema: Intimacy, Inattention, Surrealism

Abstract

This article investigates the role of sleep in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s filmmaking. Throughout his career, Apichatpong has exhibited an idiosyncratic interest in sleep. In contrast to conventional narrative cinema, his narrative features typically follow associational dream logics, his characters are often shown sleeping or in states of partial consciousness, while the slow, purposeful rhythms of his film style often lull spectators to sleep. Yet beyond sleeps diegetic appearance in his films, it also informs Apichatpong’s unusual understanding of the architecture of cinematic spectatorship, guiding his belief that sleep and cinema are inextricably entwined. Within this article, I analyse..