Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives | Little White Lies

Uncle Boon­mee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

11 Nov 2010 / Released: 12 Nov 2010

A person sitting in a body of water, facing a large, cascading waterfall in a lush, forested environment. The waterfall is a vibrant blue colour, creating a striking contrast against the dark surroundings.
A person sitting in a body of water, facing a large, cascading waterfall in a lush, forested environment. The waterfall is a vibrant blue colour, creating a striking contrast against the dark surroundings.
4

Anticipation.

A surprising but utterly justified Palme d’Or winner.

4

Enjoyment.

A film so entrancing, original and hypnotic that the moment it finishes the immediate impulse is to watch it again.

4

In Retrospect.

A truly singular cinematic experience.

Uncle Boon­mee is by turns iron­ic, poignant, pro­found and lan­guid­ly sen­su­ous and erotic.

Orig­i­nal­ly con­ceived as part of the wider Prim­i­tive Project, a series of works all set in the Isan province in north­east Thai­land, Uncle Boon­mee Who Can Recall His Past Lives resists reduc­tion to a sim­ple syn­op­sis. Almost impos­si­ble to describe, you sim­ply have to see it.

The essen­tials? Suf­fer­ing from acute kid­ney fail­ure, Uncle Boon­mee (Thana­p­at Saisay­mar) has cho­sen to spend his final days sur­round­ed by his loved ones in the coun­try­side. Sur­pris­ing­ly, the ghost of his deceased wife (Natthakarn Aphai­wonk) appears to care for him, and his long lost son (Geerasak Kul­hong) returns home in non-human form (as a cud­dly mon­key-type fig­ure with pul­sat­ing red eyes, which looks like it may have escaped from a 1970s Big Foot hoax pho­to­graph). Con­tem­plat­ing the rea­sons for his ill­ness, Boon­mee treks through the jun­gle with his fam­i­ly to a mys­te­ri­ous hill­top cave – the birth­place of his first life.

Cast using a com­bi­na­tion of pro­fes­sion­als from the director’s ear­li­er fea­tures and local non-actors (Saisay­mar is a roof welder), the film was orig­i­nal­ly con­ceived as an homage to the cin­e­ma of Apichat­pong Weerasethakul’s youth – tele­vi­sion shows shot on 16mm in stu­dios with strong, direct light­ing; actors mechan­i­cal­ly repeat­ing lines of dia­logue; and mon­sters clothed in dark­ness to hide cheap­ly made costumes.

Oper­at­ing like a stream of con­scious­ness with dis­tinct shifts in tone, Uncle Boon­mee is by turns iron­ic, poignant, pro­found and lan­guid­ly sen­su­ous and erot­ic. As the film gen­tly unfolds we realise that we have been wit­ness to an incred­i­bly mov­ing and quite tran­scen­dent expe­ri­ence about life’s pass­ing and the trans­mi­gra­tion of souls between humans, plants, ani­mals and ghosts.

For Weerasethakul, film­mak­ing remains a nec­es­sar­i­ly mys­te­ri­ous prac­tice – one which mir­rors the fre­quent­ly unex­plain­able mys­ter­ies of both the uni­verse and the human mind. How­ev­er, the film is not pure­ly sen­so­ry. For the direc­tor, Boon­mee and his beliefs act as an emblem of some­thing that is dis­ap­pear­ing in the face of a new Thai state agency resis­tant to cul­tures and beliefs that do not match its own ideologies.

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