Ashes (II) (2012) User Reviews

To Dream is To Dream !

[baderfan · 3 October 2015]

Brief but Effective; Taciturn but Meaningful; Enigmatic but Scrutable; Worldly but Extra-terrestrial.

A short film which manages completely and beautifully to distinguish the quality of the dreams and ethereal experiences from any attempt to recreate the unique senses, feelings & fantasies that they create.

Weerasethakul made a dreamlike movie about a dream, and asked if this was the dream itself ? What about the mesmerizing firework display; Was there really anyone to feel it and experience it ? Or are they all there just to record it on their tiny screens ?

/ A-

A so-called experimental!

[donalupe · 2/10 · 12 November 2021]

Absolutely loved the "dreamy" shots, but the dream fell short, and not because it wasn't film-worthy. You don't call something experimental because it's unusual but because there's something new being practiced. This experiment has already been done more aesthetically. Picking every 15th shot from a grainy 35mm could make you calm and give you all those words but gluing those for 20 minutes won't make a 'drama'.

Nothing to see here

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 15 August 2015]

"Ashes" is a 3-year-old movie by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, one of the most successful Asian directors currently working. This film runs for 20 minutes and I felt it has a very experimental touch to it. Occasionally, it reminded me of Kenneth Anger's works. It's all much more about atmosphere than about telling a story and that rarely works for me. Same here, I am not the biggest Anger fan at all and also not a fan of these 20 minutes. I must say occasionally they dragged more than a 2-hour movie as the action simply wasn't interesting. If you still want to watch it, I suggest you may use a copy that has English subtitles unless you speak the language of Thai. All in all, not recommended. I guess the filmmaker's full feature movies must be superior looking at how many awards he won.