In Europe, the angle at which sunlight hits Earth is lower than in Thailand, says Sayombhu Mukdeeprom. In Europe, he explains, the air also has less humidity, meaning the suffusion of colour in the light is more intense.
"In Europe, the colours are more vibrant," he says. "It's good, but it's also dangerous because some colours, such as magenta, critically dominate the lens, especially when you shoot during twilight, that gap between night and day."
Sayombhu, a Thai cinematographer who has been working with film directors in Europe, has shot his last few films in Italy. The latest film he shot which has gone on worldwide release is Call Me By Your Name, a coming-of-age drama that premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January and has racked up an enthusiastic reception in the US and Europe in the past months. It has been named the best film of the year by LA Film Critics Circle and appeared in various top-10 lists. The film will open on Thursday at House RCA in Bangkok.
A buzz is intensifying. A critics' as well as audience favourite, Call Me By Your Name is likely to be nominated for the Oscars' Best Picture, as well as for the acting category for Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer -- and maybe a few others. If there's ever a chance that a Thai talent is nominated for an Academy Award, Sayombhu is the closest bet the country has ever seen.
It won't be easy. This has been a year of stunning cinematography, especially the work of Roger Deakins in Blade Runner 2049, Hoyte Van Hoytema in Dunkirk, Philippe Le Sourd in The Beguiled and Dan Laustsen in The Shape Of Water (opening next year). But Sayombhu stands a real chance of getting a nod that would be a first ever. In various Oscar predictions -- Hollywood Reporter and IndieWire, for instance -- his cinematography work in Call Me By Your Name, which affectionately captures the balmy summer of northern Italy, is considered a serious contender that could break into the final shortlist. The Oscar nomination will be announced on Jan 23, 2018.
"Cinematography is a technical work, but in a movie, everything is based on a script and the crew's understanding of it," says Sayombhu, who graduated from Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Mass Communication in the 1980s and did a year at Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in Moscow, also known as Vgik, in the 1990s.
"Of course, it's important to understand the technique and all the rules. But I don't box myself in. I don't look at references. I don't do storyboard, because it limits my ideas. I plan things but it's important to be ready to adapt all the time," he laughs. "Like a warrior in a Chinese martial arts novel, you find your sword on the way."
Cinema, Sayombhu says, is a negotiation of light and shadow -- and that is the job of the cinematographer, whether he's shooting in the hard-hitting light of Thailand or the balmier, more suffused twilight of southern Europe. Sayombhu shot Call Me By Your Name -- on 35mm film, not digital -- around Milan with director Luca Guadagnino. In 2014, the Thai spent a whole year travelling around Portugal with director Miguel Gomes to film Arabian Nights, an acclaimed six-hour fiction-documentary hybrid released in three parts and chronicling the impact of the austerity measures on rural inhabitants of Portugal.
Before his European stint, Sayombhu started shooting Thai films in 2000. He shot a number of commercial films, but most notably was his work with Apichatpong Weerasethakul on Dokfa nai meuman (Mysterious Object At Noon), Sud sanaeha (Blissfully Yours), Sang sattawat (Syndromes And A Century), as well as the Cannes-winning Loong Boonmee raleuk chat (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Life) -- arthouse titles that gained fame internationally for rarefied beauty and lyrical surrealism. His work in Uncle Boonmee -- which has Thai as well as international producers -- opened the way for him to shoot Italian film Antonia. and that film in turn led him to more European projects.
Sayombhu's latest work is a remake of the 1977 horror classic Suspiria. The director is, again, Luca Guadagnino of Call Me By Your Name, and the film starring Tilda Swinton, Chloe Grace Moretz and Dakota Johnson will premiere next year.
Adapted from a 2007 novel by Andre Aciman, Call Me By Your Name is a moving story of a teenage boy and his awakening of desire when a handsome young scholar visiting his house in Italy. The book is on the best-selling list at Asia Books in Bangkok, and the Thai translation has been released.
"When I read the book, of course I visualise the image -- the same as everyone else does," says Sayombhu. "But I didn't plan every detail. It's half-planning, half-problem solving. That's the same as when I worked on Thai movies. The number in the crew, too, is about the same in a Thai and European production."
What's different, however, is the style of each director. Working with Thai auteur Apichatpong, Sayombhu says, is a process of finding collective creativity. He would visit the location with the director even before a script is ready. "Apichatpong invests in humans and time, not in equipment," Sayombhu recalls. "Shooting his film is to enter his world, and he wanted you to be driven by the environment, the location, the actors."
A technical decision makes Sayombhu stand out: his first choice is always to shoot on film and not on digital, unlike most cinematographers and directors today who prefer digital for reasons of cost, speed and efficiency. In Call Me By Your Name, Sayombhu also used only one lens throughout the film -- a 35mm -- an unusual and highly challenging approach.
The film-vs-digital discussion was revived when director Guadagnino said in an interview, half-jokingly, that only "lazy" people prefer shoot on digital.
"I don't think so, not everyone that uses digital is lazy," Sayombhu laughs. "Film or digital – we're talking about a tool. It's like when you want to sketch a picture, you have a choice of a pen, a pencil or a Coreldraw pen. Each tool gives you a different outcome," says Sayombhu. "For me, digital cameras don't communicate with me in my attempt to capture reality. I don't get that 'feeling' when I use digital, but I get it when I look into the viewfinder of a film camera.
"I'm not saying which is better. It's about which one is compatible with me."
Call Me By Your Name
Timothee Chalamet, left, and Armie Hammer in Call Me By Your Name. Photos courtesy of Sayombhu Mukdeeporm
