Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (he goes by “Sayo”) has distinguished himself over the last two decades as the cherished cinematographer of directors Luca Guadagnino (“Call Me By Your Name,” “Suspiria”) and Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Cannes Palme d’Or winner “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives”).
And though the works by those filmmakers are renowned for their many gorgeous evocations of nature, whether sun-dappled countryside or dense foggy jungle, Mukdeeprom faced one of the biggest challenges of his career with “Thirteen Lives,” his first collaborations with Oscar-winner Ron Howard.
Dramatizing the implausible 2018 story of 12 boys and their soccer coach who became trapped deep in a flooded cave, “Thirteen Lives” is set entirely in Mukdeeprom’s native Thailand — though the movie was actually filmed, apart from a few establishing shots, in sets created on the Gold Coast of Australia.
“Actually the whole thing was all a set that had been built for us,” Mukdeeprom told TheWrap. “Which was an amazing thing to see. So we created the environment and we put all of our actors extras in it. It was all a controlled situation, including the rain, which was all done with machines. At the very beginning, I told my camera crew to expect to get very wet. We needed the feeling that we were really in the rain, since it was the rain that caused the flooding in the cave.”
The film depicts the massive effort that was organized to rescue the boys and their coach. As in the real life events, the rescue was greatly assisted by British cave divers, the optimistic John Volanthen (Colin Farrell) and the taciturn Richard Stanton (Viggo Mortensen), along with an Australian anesthesiologist (Joel Edgerton). (If you aren’t familiar with the true story, you don’t want to know the reason why an anesthesiologist was needed.)
Volanthen and Stanton discovered the boys alive, nine days after they entered the cave. For the numerous scenes of the two divers squeezing through dark, tiny passageways, both Farrell and Mortensen acquired SCUBA certification so that they could perform during the underwater scenes.
We asked Mukdeeprom if he did the same. “No, no, no, no, no,” he said, smiling and waving his hand. “When I was younger I’d worked as an underwater camera assistant, but I’d abandoned that for 30 years. We have camera operators who were able to do those things.”
However, there were certain shots in the film during which space in the cave was so tight that another camera operator couldn’t fit in the scene. “So then, the actors handled the camera as they were in the space,” said Mukdeeprom. “This happened many times. The spaces were small enough that we could only fit one or two people inside.”
The cinematographer mentioned that he would chat with Farrell and Mortensen about what the job required. “Mostly I just told them simple things, like too much to the left, too much to the right,” he said. “We all had this feeling that the camera should not exist in the movie. We wanted to let the action drive the story forward, but not the camera, so I would tell them that. For the most part, we had some funny talks with each other every day, as colleagues do. Making movies is a long process.”
Mukdeeprom also praised Howard for the professional relationship that the director fostered. “Ron is a great storyteller but at the same time he’s a great leader. He’s like a chef. He listens to everyone on the set in order to make the best film. And he loves to talk about movies, which is always a great conversation.”
After completing his work on “Thirteen Lives,” Mukdeeprom reunited with Guadagnino’s for the Italian director’s next feature, the tennis-tour set “Challengers,” starring Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O’Connor. “We’re all done filming and color grading the movie now,” he said. “But I don’t know when it’s coming out. I hope soon.”
As a Thai citizen, Mukdeeprom felt privileged to photograph a story that’s so inspirational in the recent history of the country. “Since it happened in the country where I live, the emotional effect was quite big,” he said. “In life, hard-working people can do a lot of things that seem like a miracle.”
He added, “Things that look like a miracle are often done by human hands.” Farrell and Mortensen would probably agree.
“Thirteen Lives” is available to stream on Amazon Prime.