Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives [DVD]

 

 

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`Uncle Boonmee' is a curious collage of art cinema which demonstrates the distance between mainstream Hollywood movies and the everyday culture of the Far East. We first saw it at an arts centre and it was obviously unrewarding for a significant segment of the audience who exited stage left after half an hour. The pacing is languid in the extreme while much of the meaning is obliquely obscure. Yet overall the experience of watching `Uncle Boonmee' was a positive one - it may be mysterious and wilfully weird, but it was also intriguing and delicately involving.

Part of the reason for our confusion is that this is the final part of a series of short films and video installations from northern Thailand, near the border with communist Laos. These examine the history of the area in the 1960s when a Communist uprising in Thailand was aggressively suppressed by the Thai authorities. So it's hardly surprising that many of the underlying themes to `Uncle Boonmee' will leave the casual viewer somewhat bewildered.
However, the film's main theme of impending death and possibly being reunited with loved ones in the hereafter is universal and needed no translation or explanation. Boonmee is a successful hill farmer, dying of kidney failure. In his final days his missing family return to nurse him - or perhaps to guide him on his final journey. The appearance of the spirit of his dead wife at the dinner table is handled with delightful matter-of-factness. `You must be hungry' says his dead wife's living sister... and after a shocked moment, the group settles back down to eat. It's as if the boundary between life and death becomes permeable as one of us approaches it, and Boonmee's love for his wife has tethered her spirit to the mortal coil. In the scenes between Boonmee and his wife the film achieves an immense emotional intensity without ever becoming sentimental in the slightest.

The different stages of `Uncle Boonmee' are filmed in different styles. The opening chapters are very, very slow; a study in the tedium of a long car journey contrasts with a cow's languid progress through a meadow. It's fair to say that nothing much happens, and it takes a long time not happening. Later segments are presented as semi-documentary, or in stills, or like an old-fashioned costume drama. The change in presentation keeps the viewer slightly confused and adds to the film's disjointed feel. Also, much of it is presented in near-darkness, which is either atmospheric gloom or a dratted nuisance (but it does mean that the sub-titles are easy to read).
However, the subtle lighting makes the arrival and departure of the spirits all the more meaningful, and you start to believe that there may be a personality lurking in the foliage of every frame... and red glowing eyes will follow you home.

I suspect that some of the scenes aren't intended to make any kind of literal sense, so gave up worrying about what went on between the princess and the catfish. The ending is deliberately odd, too. But the emotional essence of the story is captured in some moments of every day honesty - the sharing of honey, fresh from the hive; the gentle dedication of Boonmee's assistants as they tend to his medical needs. And in the background lurks the political conflict between the Thai and the Lao, played out in rural fields between workers and farmers.
Not an easy film to love, and one which provides more questions than answers. But worth experiencing.

8/10

*Uncle Boonmee* may be diminished more than most films on DVD - it's a languid and mesmeric piece that really demands the total immersion you get from a cinema. Even so, there are some exquisite scenes here, and enough to suggest that the Palme d'Or was deserved (albeit in a less than classic year).

Having seen this soon after Werner Herzog's stunning film about the Chauvet cave paintings, I was reminded of the anthropologist's key distinctions between Paleolithic and modern man - their senses of fluidity between human and animal beings, and of permeability between the living and the spirit world. It's made quite clear by this film that these distinctions only hold in the contemporary West. The director conjures the world of his own Thai childhood (as well as of the monk whose book inspired the film), where the spirits of the dead are all around, and where human and beast co-exist to the point of mergence.

For all this strangeness, though, the humanity of the film is what gives it power. It's beautifully acted by a cast of naturals, and the scene between the dying Boonmee and the ghost of his wife is as resonantly tender as anything I have seen in cinema.

The interview with Weerasethakul on this DVD is well worth watching after you have seen the feature. It sheds fascinating light on his motivations and decisions without dispelling the film's entrancing oddness.

I was really excited about seeing this film, but it was disappointing. There were some interesting ideas in some scenes, but overall it was too superficial. Needed more depth, especially with the concept the title suggests.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Eastern Wisdom
Proceed with caution. 2010's Palme d'Or winner is a mystifying, unfathomable meditation on the twilight period between the conclusion of life and the beginning of death. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Dariush Alavi

1.0 out of 5 stars Highly over-rated, don't understand why!
Firstly can I start by saying that we watch world films all the time rather than 'blockbusters' and we're open minded and like the variety, depth, atmostphere, quality acting and... Read more

Published 1 month ago by h

5.0 out of 5 stars "What's wrong with my eyes? They are open but I can't see a thing..."
Wandering buffalo, talking, lustful catfish, ugly princesses, monkey spirits, Buddhist monks. This surely is one of the most colourful films my eyes have ever clamped upon. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Mr. A. J. Quaeck

1.0 out of 5 stars This film is a frightful waste of one's life.
Long shots of the beautiful Thai forest with only animal and bird squeaks on the soundtrack become utterly tedious once it becomes clear that this film is nothing more than a very... Read more

Published 2 months ago by Skylark

2.0 out of 5 stars Didn't get it
Well what can I say, what a strange film. I have to confess I just don't get it. There were parts that were quite good, I really liked the fairy tale style story of the catfish... Read more

Published 3 months ago by KH

3.0 out of 5 stars Not without merit, but sloooow
I feel as though I saw this film a very long time ago, though in fact it was just a few weeks ago. My memories of it are impressionistic, but that may be because the film as a... Read more

Published 7 months ago by Hilx

2.0 out of 5 stars A man who can recall mundane films!
I reviewed a wierd film in the form of Mulholland Drive, i am partial to a strange film and although this has 'Lynchian' elements to it, scenes you will remember for a long time,... Read more

Published 9 months ago by Mr. A. J. Richards

5.0 out of 5 stars boon me
every time i think about seeing this film in the cinema, some months ago, i am brought to a feeling of immense joy and intrigue, can't wait to see it again.

Published 12 months ago by K. Murray

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