CineTributes: Sayombhu Mukdeeprom
Strange to think how, just five years ago, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom was considered Thailand's pre-eminent cinematographer. Today, he's rightfully known as one of the world's pre-eminent cinematographers... not that his Thai work was anything less than world-class. Indeed, it was arguably in his home country that Mukdeeprom excelled most, specifically in his faithful collaborations with Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand's pre-eminent director. But while the latter's career has slowed down somewhat in the past decade, the former's has flourished, likely due in large part to his international work.
Mukdeeprom's heart-stoppingly sumptuous cinematography for Weerasethakul helped him catch the eye of some of European cinema's foremost talents. He worked with Miguel Gomes on his Arabian Nights epic in 2015, the same year that he worked on Antonia., the directorial debut of Luca Guadagnino's frequent colleague Ferdinando Cito Filomarino. Since then, he's served as DP on all of Guadagnino's cinematic output, including the Oscar-winning Call Me by Your Name. Coming up, he'll join Filomarino again for his English-language thriller Born to Be Murdered, and will rejoin Weerasethakul for his first film since leaving Thailand behind him, this year's Memoria with Tilda Swinton. Every Mukdeeprom gig is one worth catching - his ravishing compositions and skill for manipulating natural and existing light sources make him one of cinematography's outstanding figures in the modern era of filmmaking. The montage I've made for him is one of my favourites so far, and I hope it'll be one of yours too!
Films featured
Mysterious Object at Noon, 2000
Blissfully Yours, 2002
Syndromes and a Century, 2006
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, 2010
Arabian Nights, 2015
Antonia., 2015
Call Me by Your Name, 2017
Suspiria, 2018
The Staggering Girl, 2019