In this essay I will attempt to examine the intricate structure of Syndromes and a Century by dissecting the body of the work and analysing the underlying artistic mechanism. I will argue that Apichatpong’s work transgresses the canons of the conventional cinematic model and the established narrative structures. I will try to construct my argument by relating the particular formal characteristics of the film to more general ideas and philosophical questions. Such are the notions of time and reality, the examination of which are of paramount importance in the particular cinematic creation.
The classical narrative structure borrowed in cinema from other artistic domains, mostly the theatre play and the novel, and coherently outlined for the first time by Aristotles, follows a divided in acts linear development of the action. However, the nature of cinema carries unbreakable hereditary bond to the visual art forms such as painting and sculpture. Furthermore it may be argued that it is, no less than the novel, similar to the poem. In these non-narrative art-forms the idea of time exists in a different plane. Losing its linear definiteness time turns from a constant into a variable entirely dependent on the expression of the creator and the perception of the beholder.
Syndromes and a century is not a film that takes the spectator through a story with a beginning and an end. It abolishes the ‘classical film narrative’ which rests on ‘casual logic’. (Corrigan, 2009, p. 240). The cause and effect pattern of the narrative film formally derives the constructive elements to work in a combinative progression, where each one adds up to the previous one. For example the sequence of frames form a shot, the shots form a sequence and so on. Usually one of the elements in the cinematic syntagm defines the other ones and reduces the possible meanings to an overall lucid concept. Though the plot may not have linear chronology the chain of expressive elements work in linear order – the shots in a sequence interact with each other and the sequences within an episode are interdependent as well. It can be concluded that as a whole the narration has linear temporality.
In Syndromes and a Century the scenes are composed of very few shots which do not necessarily interact according to fixed semantic principles. For example the first shot in the film has very little notional uniformity with the rest of the shots in the scene. The image of the gently swaying trees and the subsequent shot of the man being questioned form a very cognitively opaque couple. The relation between the shots may appear quite unspecified and the quite artistic decision – unjustified. However, I would argue that in this and the many other such cases throughout the film Apichtapong is following quite a complex structural path. It is similar to the overtonal montage of Eisenstein where the structural spine is formed by the connotative nuances rather than the ostensible main chord. However, unlike Eisenstein in Apichatpong’s film the elements are not rigorously aligned in a calculated cartesian scheme. The binding force is not some demand of reason but an impetus of artistic intuition. The nature of the shots themselves is quite peculiar.
Most of the shots in the film are economical, long and static. The long take is a definitive trait of a nonconventional cinema and has been utilized and taken to extremes as by such masters as Bella Tarr. Long takes in which there is hardly any action are iconoclastically at variance with the pragmatism and functionality of Hollywood cinema – they bring little information and are just waste of time. As far as the notion of narrative is concerned, in a languid long take the narrative causality is suspended. In the final scenes of Syndromes and a Century there is a more than three and a half-minute long interior crane shot in which the camera slowly hovers within the space of a steam-filled room until it finally freezes before the image of a black hole-like air vent. In this very shot one may discern the very gist of independent cinema. Although the shot does not overtly disclose its substance and purpose it is not in itself bereft of matter. It has its internal choreography and what Nedelcho Milev calls ‘in-shot montage’.(Milev, 1999, p.87) In this take and arguably the whole film the informative mode of narration, the prosaic serving of calculated cinematic data is forsaken in favour of an indeterminate dysfunctional cinematic contemplation.
The editing of Apichatpong does not rely on the continuity principles and renounces most of the ubiquitous postulates according to which mainstream work are assembled. For instance it does not accentuate the ‘important’ moments and actions and does not generate dramatic peaks of the action through conventional editing models. In the scene where the doctor examines the Buddhist monk, among others, the conventional and almost compulsory for narrative cinema establishing shot, one shot close-ups, eye line-match and shot-reverse shot patterns are completely neglected. Thus it may be concluded that the director utilizes the constructive elements not so much as filmic cogs that put a story in motion but more as independent components that operate within a multidimensional pictorial edifice in which the relation between the building blocks is not arranged in linear order. The iconoclastic design of Syndromes and a Century, however does not originate out from a venturous self-indulgent whim of the film-maker and its artistic saps spring from a soil watered long before by the thought of creators.
Although the linear narrative has been widely accepted in literature until the 20th century, works such as Marcel Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time’ and James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ freely violated the laws of spatial and temporal integrity. The idea of ‘story’ was challenged and since
‘narrative is the structure of the story’(Kolker, 2002, p.34), the overall concept of narrative was put at stake. In cinematic terms the ‘casual logic’ of narration was broken by some of the greatest auteurs, among which is Tarkovsky. He stated that he is ‘less and less interested in the chain of events’ and instead focuses on the ‘person’s inner world’. (Tarkovsky, 1986, p.204). Similarly, Apichatpong does not seem to be interested in the events in themselves but more in the depths they’re tooted in, in the truth, the meaning behind the appearance. It is that meaning, that incorporeal essence that determines the image flow. Thus the film’s structure appears to outline a rather intuitive pattern of the corridors of memories and inner sensations quite similarly to Tarkovsky’s Mirror and Fellini’s 8 ½. Identically to Syndromes and a Century the work of Tarkovsky is an ostensibly eclectic amalgam of moving images where the screen logic seems to give way to a paradoxical and disconnected stream of impressions. I would argue that fundamentally the question of film narration may be reduced to a larger concern – the notions of time, reality and logic. The examination of their cinematic appearance is paramount for understanding the mechanism of classical narration and its opposition in the face of ‘Syndromes and a Century’.
In domain of art, which arguably includes cinema, one may observe a dichotomy of approach or rather - Weltanschauung regarding time. I will conditionally term it - prosaic and poetic treatment of time. The prosaic treatment of time is a logical one, it rigidly adheres to the established understanding of time as an irreversible flow from past to future. In this Euclidean realm the cause always precedes the effect. The classical narrative form is exclusively rooted in that model. This prosaic time is a rather materialistic, pragmatic concept of temporal linearity, a concept conceived empirically as a function of scientific reason. On the other side there is the poetic time, which may be seen as an amorphous surface dependent of the mind and spirit of the human being. It is a philosophical idea of where time is a malleable material of self-creation existing in the blossom of the moment. A quotation would sketch it better:
‘When you transcend your thinking mind in the realization of your own pure, timeless, ever-present Awareness, then the illusion of time completely collapses, and you become utterly Free of the samsaric cycle of time, change, impermanence, and suffering.’ ... ‘...your own Buddha Mind exists beyond time, in THIS very moment... (Zen Master Seung Sahn, 1997, p. 143)
Apichatpong is a Buddhist and his films are intrinsically imbued with Buddhist sense. Poetic time is the individual’s experience of temporality, quite similar to Henry Bergson’s concept of ‘duration’ or Nietzsche’s ‘eternal return’ briefed by the dwarf as ‘time itself is a circle’. (Nietzsche, 1961, p.178). This non-scientific time is a metaphysical quantity, a measurement of man- not as a physical organism but as a philosophical idea, as a spiritual being. And that poetic time exists as eternity within the moment. The indestructible spirit that dwells in it is what the Brahmanists call ‘Atman’ – universal soul. For the rational western people the creeds of the east appear unsound and esoteric. All these speculations lead to the understanding that the classical temporal order of the narration is an inapplicable in Apichatpong’s work, his Buddhist mind works in variance with pure reason. The separate scenes in the film do not relate to a fixed storyline, they’re not just eclectically shuffled parts that need to be arranged in order, for there is no logical order. All the shots, scenes and episodes exist individually within the same moment and on the time-line they interact not horizontally but vertically. I reckon that is a pivotal attribute of Syndromes and a Century’s structure. Time leads to another notion that determines the work of Apichatpong. In Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives Huay ‘I have no concept of time any longer.’ Huay is a spirit and yet the director has portrayed her with untainted realism. The idea of ‘reality’ itself needs to be put to question.
Rudolf Arnheim stated that ‘film cannot be art for it does nothing but reproduce reality mechanically’ (Arnheim, 1957, p.8) I reckon he was right in the second part. Film is reality, but what is reality – it is an empirically ascertained notion, a prosaic simplification and limitation of the infinite truth –which is divinely unfathomable. Contemporary cinema deals with ‘reality’ similar to the way it does so with time – with logical pragmatism. Even if in fashionable contemporary films such as Inception or Shutter Island it intentionally attempts to blur the margins between real and fictional it does still insist on the idea that the common concept of reality is objectively real. In the East things are different. In Rashomon Kurosawa showed that reality is nothing but of a reflection, a projection of the human being itself. Art film-makers do not reproduce reality but reproduce their perception, their inner cosmic spheres – it is the equivalent of ‘poetic time’ but in larger terms. It is an outlook that deals not with the apparent to the senses -real but the over-sensory instinctive perception of truth – the reality we find in art. Bresson succinctly outlines his ideal: ‘Cinematography films – emotional not representational.’ (Bresson, 1997, p.100) How does that explain the narrative of Syndromes and a Century? Well, if linearity of time and objective reality are absent from the equation then how could the cause-effect mechanism possibly function? When the cinematic expression exceeds the finite rationality it inevitably breaks the classical narrative form, for this form is build on logic and reason. Then cinema becomes less literary and more musical. Yet, after all, even musical pieces have structure, quite a rigid one sometimes. Apichatpong’s work too is conceived not as an amorphous visual effusion, but is elegantly constructed.
Although the film does not fit at all in the canons of narrative cinema, it yet possesses some narrative elements that set it apart from avant-garde abstract art, which is a separate artistic field. Despite the atypical form of the film, it does possess some cinematic characteristics that define it as a feature film rather than a visual experiment. Though similarly bizarre, Gaudi’s buildings do have solid foundations, this film does too. A principle narrative trait is the presence of characters, though the ones in Apichatpong’s creation operate differently. The characters in Syndromes and a Century do not drive a story like in mainstream cinema but rather create an environment for the subtle ideas and sensations to grow. The individuals – from the Buddhist monk to Doctor Wan in a way do not simply portray real people but impersonate something more elusive – ideas, ephemeral sensations and memories. Similarly another narrative attribute – dialogue is present, yet works completely differently. The dialogue in the film is not essential in its literal verbalism. It does not clearly delineate the messages and again it does not propel a story. Quite peculiarly the lines in the dialogue if isolated have very little importance - they do not directly denote the themes and concerns of the work. Even the talk about the mystic orchid does not lead to any event that would justify its presence. There are no calculated resolutions and definitiveness of the speech throughout the work. If in standard cinema – a word even if unclear, say ‘Rosebud’ eventually loses its enigmatic nature and is defined, in Syndromes and a Century there are no such moments, because as argued previously, the film has no linear structure. Nevertheless, the whole dialogue in the film as a sum of the elements does a lot to create a very thin metaphorical layer of perception.
If there can be any structural dissection of Apichatpong’s film with meaningful outcome that would be the dichotomy of two halves. The narrative’s largest components are two parts in which absolutely the same events occur. However, the two parts are not at all identical. The director said that they refer to his mother and his father and dualism of their unity. These two large components interact with each other creating a mirror structure similar to the poem Two Beautiful Eyes by Peyo Yavorov. Like in the literary work the whole is comprised of the almost equal halves. Each of these halves means nothing without the other. They are entangled in an undivided whole, yet formally are isolated from one another. If there is any narration in the film then it is begotten by the interaction of the two parts. They are like different echoes of the same sound, altered by the acoustics of the medium and reverberating together to generate a third sound. Perchance that is a cause-effect pattern, the only one present in the film.
In conclusion, Syndromes and a Century is a film that greatly breaks with the conventions of narrative cinema. It almost completely abolishes the canons of visual storytelling, greatly due to the fact that it does not tell a story. Moreover, in the films non-conventional form is reflected a whole different understanding of things – one that has Buddhist nature and has less to do with pure reason.
Bibliography:
Arnheim, Rudolf, 1957, Film as Art, University of California Press, London
Bordwell, David, 2008, Poetics of Cinema,Taylor&Francis Group, New York
Bresson, Robert, 1997, Notes on the Cinematographer, Green Integer, Los Angelis
Corrigan, Timothy & White, Patricia, 2009, The Film Experience: An Introduction, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills
Milev, Nedelcho, 1998, Theory of the elements of cinema, St. Kliment Ohridski University press,Sofia
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 1961, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Penguin Books, Middlesex
Tarkovsky, Andrey, 2008, Sculpting in Time, University of Texas Press, Austin
Zen Master Seung Sahn, 1997, The Compass of Zen, Shambhala Publications, Boston
Filmography:
8 ½ , Federico Fellini, 1963, Italy
Inception , Christopher Nolan, 2010, USA
Mirror, Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975, Soviet Union
Rashomon , Akira Kurosawa, 1950, Japan
Shutter Island , Martin Scorsese, 2010, USA
Syndromes and a Century , Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2006, Thailand
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives , Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010, Thailand
The classical narrative structure borrowed in cinema from other artistic domains, mostly the theatre play and the novel, and coherently outlined for the first time by Aristotles, follows a divided in acts linear development of the action. However, the nature of cinema carries unbreakable hereditary bond to the visual art forms such as painting and sculpture. Furthermore it may be argued that it is, no less than the novel, similar to the poem. In these non-narrative art-forms the idea of time exists in a different plane. Losing its linear definiteness time turns from a constant into a variable entirely dependent on the expression of the creator and the perception of the beholder.
Syndromes and a century is not a film that takes the spectator through a story with a beginning and an end. It abolishes the ‘classical film narrative’ which rests on ‘casual logic’. (Corrigan, 2009, p. 240). The cause and effect pattern of the narrative film formally derives the constructive elements to work in a combinative progression, where each one adds up to the previous one. For example the sequence of frames form a shot, the shots form a sequence and so on. Usually one of the elements in the cinematic syntagm defines the other ones and reduces the possible meanings to an overall lucid concept. Though the plot may not have linear chronology the chain of expressive elements work in linear order – the shots in a sequence interact with each other and the sequences within an episode are interdependent as well. It can be concluded that as a whole the narration has linear temporality.
In Syndromes and a Century the scenes are composed of very few shots which do not necessarily interact according to fixed semantic principles. For example the first shot in the film has very little notional uniformity with the rest of the shots in the scene. The image of the gently swaying trees and the subsequent shot of the man being questioned form a very cognitively opaque couple. The relation between the shots may appear quite unspecified and the quite artistic decision – unjustified. However, I would argue that in this and the many other such cases throughout the film Apichtapong is following quite a complex structural path. It is similar to the overtonal montage of Eisenstein where the structural spine is formed by the connotative nuances rather than the ostensible main chord. However, unlike Eisenstein in Apichatpong’s film the elements are not rigorously aligned in a calculated cartesian scheme. The binding force is not some demand of reason but an impetus of artistic intuition. The nature of the shots themselves is quite peculiar.
Most of the shots in the film are economical, long and static. The long take is a definitive trait of a nonconventional cinema and has been utilized and taken to extremes as by such masters as Bella Tarr. Long takes in which there is hardly any action are iconoclastically at variance with the pragmatism and functionality of Hollywood cinema – they bring little information and are just waste of time. As far as the notion of narrative is concerned, in a languid long take the narrative causality is suspended. In the final scenes of Syndromes and a Century there is a more than three and a half-minute long interior crane shot in which the camera slowly hovers within the space of a steam-filled room until it finally freezes before the image of a black hole-like air vent. In this very shot one may discern the very gist of independent cinema. Although the shot does not overtly disclose its substance and purpose it is not in itself bereft of matter. It has its internal choreography and what Nedelcho Milev calls ‘in-shot montage’.(Milev, 1999, p.87) In this take and arguably the whole film the informative mode of narration, the prosaic serving of calculated cinematic data is forsaken in favour of an indeterminate dysfunctional cinematic contemplation.
The editing of Apichatpong does not rely on the continuity principles and renounces most of the ubiquitous postulates according to which mainstream work are assembled. For instance it does not accentuate the ‘important’ moments and actions and does not generate dramatic peaks of the action through conventional editing models. In the scene where the doctor examines the Buddhist monk, among others, the conventional and almost compulsory for narrative cinema establishing shot, one shot close-ups, eye line-match and shot-reverse shot patterns are completely neglected. Thus it may be concluded that the director utilizes the constructive elements not so much as filmic cogs that put a story in motion but more as independent components that operate within a multidimensional pictorial edifice in which the relation between the building blocks is not arranged in linear order. The iconoclastic design of Syndromes and a Century, however does not originate out from a venturous self-indulgent whim of the film-maker and its artistic saps spring from a soil watered long before by the thought of creators.
Although the linear narrative has been widely accepted in literature until the 20th century, works such as Marcel Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time’ and James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ freely violated the laws of spatial and temporal integrity. The idea of ‘story’ was challenged and since
‘narrative is the structure of the story’(Kolker, 2002, p.34), the overall concept of narrative was put at stake. In cinematic terms the ‘casual logic’ of narration was broken by some of the greatest auteurs, among which is Tarkovsky. He stated that he is ‘less and less interested in the chain of events’ and instead focuses on the ‘person’s inner world’. (Tarkovsky, 1986, p.204). Similarly, Apichatpong does not seem to be interested in the events in themselves but more in the depths they’re tooted in, in the truth, the meaning behind the appearance. It is that meaning, that incorporeal essence that determines the image flow. Thus the film’s structure appears to outline a rather intuitive pattern of the corridors of memories and inner sensations quite similarly to Tarkovsky’s Mirror and Fellini’s 8 ½. Identically to Syndromes and a Century the work of Tarkovsky is an ostensibly eclectic amalgam of moving images where the screen logic seems to give way to a paradoxical and disconnected stream of impressions. I would argue that fundamentally the question of film narration may be reduced to a larger concern – the notions of time, reality and logic. The examination of their cinematic appearance is paramount for understanding the mechanism of classical narration and its opposition in the face of ‘Syndromes and a Century’.
In domain of art, which arguably includes cinema, one may observe a dichotomy of approach or rather - Weltanschauung regarding time. I will conditionally term it - prosaic and poetic treatment of time. The prosaic treatment of time is a logical one, it rigidly adheres to the established understanding of time as an irreversible flow from past to future. In this Euclidean realm the cause always precedes the effect. The classical narrative form is exclusively rooted in that model. This prosaic time is a rather materialistic, pragmatic concept of temporal linearity, a concept conceived empirically as a function of scientific reason. On the other side there is the poetic time, which may be seen as an amorphous surface dependent of the mind and spirit of the human being. It is a philosophical idea of where time is a malleable material of self-creation existing in the blossom of the moment. A quotation would sketch it better:
‘When you transcend your thinking mind in the realization of your own pure, timeless, ever-present Awareness, then the illusion of time completely collapses, and you become utterly Free of the samsaric cycle of time, change, impermanence, and suffering.’ ... ‘...your own Buddha Mind exists beyond time, in THIS very moment... (Zen Master Seung Sahn, 1997, p. 143)
Apichatpong is a Buddhist and his films are intrinsically imbued with Buddhist sense. Poetic time is the individual’s experience of temporality, quite similar to Henry Bergson’s concept of ‘duration’ or Nietzsche’s ‘eternal return’ briefed by the dwarf as ‘time itself is a circle’. (Nietzsche, 1961, p.178). This non-scientific time is a metaphysical quantity, a measurement of man- not as a physical organism but as a philosophical idea, as a spiritual being. And that poetic time exists as eternity within the moment. The indestructible spirit that dwells in it is what the Brahmanists call ‘Atman’ – universal soul. For the rational western people the creeds of the east appear unsound and esoteric. All these speculations lead to the understanding that the classical temporal order of the narration is an inapplicable in Apichatpong’s work, his Buddhist mind works in variance with pure reason. The separate scenes in the film do not relate to a fixed storyline, they’re not just eclectically shuffled parts that need to be arranged in order, for there is no logical order. All the shots, scenes and episodes exist individually within the same moment and on the time-line they interact not horizontally but vertically. I reckon that is a pivotal attribute of Syndromes and a Century’s structure. Time leads to another notion that determines the work of Apichatpong. In Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives Huay ‘I have no concept of time any longer.’ Huay is a spirit and yet the director has portrayed her with untainted realism. The idea of ‘reality’ itself needs to be put to question.
Rudolf Arnheim stated that ‘film cannot be art for it does nothing but reproduce reality mechanically’ (Arnheim, 1957, p.8) I reckon he was right in the second part. Film is reality, but what is reality – it is an empirically ascertained notion, a prosaic simplification and limitation of the infinite truth –which is divinely unfathomable. Contemporary cinema deals with ‘reality’ similar to the way it does so with time – with logical pragmatism. Even if in fashionable contemporary films such as Inception or Shutter Island it intentionally attempts to blur the margins between real and fictional it does still insist on the idea that the common concept of reality is objectively real. In the East things are different. In Rashomon Kurosawa showed that reality is nothing but of a reflection, a projection of the human being itself. Art film-makers do not reproduce reality but reproduce their perception, their inner cosmic spheres – it is the equivalent of ‘poetic time’ but in larger terms. It is an outlook that deals not with the apparent to the senses -real but the over-sensory instinctive perception of truth – the reality we find in art. Bresson succinctly outlines his ideal: ‘Cinematography films – emotional not representational.’ (Bresson, 1997, p.100) How does that explain the narrative of Syndromes and a Century? Well, if linearity of time and objective reality are absent from the equation then how could the cause-effect mechanism possibly function? When the cinematic expression exceeds the finite rationality it inevitably breaks the classical narrative form, for this form is build on logic and reason. Then cinema becomes less literary and more musical. Yet, after all, even musical pieces have structure, quite a rigid one sometimes. Apichatpong’s work too is conceived not as an amorphous visual effusion, but is elegantly constructed.
Although the film does not fit at all in the canons of narrative cinema, it yet possesses some narrative elements that set it apart from avant-garde abstract art, which is a separate artistic field. Despite the atypical form of the film, it does possess some cinematic characteristics that define it as a feature film rather than a visual experiment. Though similarly bizarre, Gaudi’s buildings do have solid foundations, this film does too. A principle narrative trait is the presence of characters, though the ones in Apichatpong’s creation operate differently. The characters in Syndromes and a Century do not drive a story like in mainstream cinema but rather create an environment for the subtle ideas and sensations to grow. The individuals – from the Buddhist monk to Doctor Wan in a way do not simply portray real people but impersonate something more elusive – ideas, ephemeral sensations and memories. Similarly another narrative attribute – dialogue is present, yet works completely differently. The dialogue in the film is not essential in its literal verbalism. It does not clearly delineate the messages and again it does not propel a story. Quite peculiarly the lines in the dialogue if isolated have very little importance - they do not directly denote the themes and concerns of the work. Even the talk about the mystic orchid does not lead to any event that would justify its presence. There are no calculated resolutions and definitiveness of the speech throughout the work. If in standard cinema – a word even if unclear, say ‘Rosebud’ eventually loses its enigmatic nature and is defined, in Syndromes and a Century there are no such moments, because as argued previously, the film has no linear structure. Nevertheless, the whole dialogue in the film as a sum of the elements does a lot to create a very thin metaphorical layer of perception.
If there can be any structural dissection of Apichatpong’s film with meaningful outcome that would be the dichotomy of two halves. The narrative’s largest components are two parts in which absolutely the same events occur. However, the two parts are not at all identical. The director said that they refer to his mother and his father and dualism of their unity. These two large components interact with each other creating a mirror structure similar to the poem Two Beautiful Eyes by Peyo Yavorov. Like in the literary work the whole is comprised of the almost equal halves. Each of these halves means nothing without the other. They are entangled in an undivided whole, yet formally are isolated from one another. If there is any narration in the film then it is begotten by the interaction of the two parts. They are like different echoes of the same sound, altered by the acoustics of the medium and reverberating together to generate a third sound. Perchance that is a cause-effect pattern, the only one present in the film.
In conclusion, Syndromes and a Century is a film that greatly breaks with the conventions of narrative cinema. It almost completely abolishes the canons of visual storytelling, greatly due to the fact that it does not tell a story. Moreover, in the films non-conventional form is reflected a whole different understanding of things – one that has Buddhist nature and has less to do with pure reason.
Bibliography:
Arnheim, Rudolf, 1957, Film as Art, University of California Press, London
Bordwell, David, 2008, Poetics of Cinema,Taylor&Francis Group, New York
Bresson, Robert, 1997, Notes on the Cinematographer, Green Integer, Los Angelis
Corrigan, Timothy & White, Patricia, 2009, The Film Experience: An Introduction, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills
Milev, Nedelcho, 1998, Theory of the elements of cinema, St. Kliment Ohridski University press,Sofia
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 1961, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Penguin Books, Middlesex
Tarkovsky, Andrey, 2008, Sculpting in Time, University of Texas Press, Austin
Zen Master Seung Sahn, 1997, The Compass of Zen, Shambhala Publications, Boston
Filmography:
8 ½ , Federico Fellini, 1963, Italy
Inception , Christopher Nolan, 2010, USA
Mirror, Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975, Soviet Union
Rashomon , Akira Kurosawa, 1950, Japan
Shutter Island , Martin Scorsese, 2010, USA
Syndromes and a Century , Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2006, Thailand
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives , Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010, Thailand