Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Just as one might unfold and press a pair of 3D glasses up against their eyeballs to enter a realm where axes pass by Nic Cage's broken shades and head straight at you and gateways between worlds stretch out like the bellows of an accordion, creating startling depth of field, one might feel that thin barrier between audience and projection begin to disintegrate while entering the realm of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's astonishing Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. For in Thai-born Weerasethakul's fifth feature, the worlds of the household and the jungle, the living and the dead, the modern and the ancient, the civilized and the beastly become inseparable and contingent on one another without the hesitancy of explanatory dialogue to dull their visual impact by giving them a false sense of meaning.
The official follow-up to Weerasethakul's equally masterful and unique Syndromes and a Century, Uncle Boonmee maintains an essential air of mystery for the whole of its nearly two-hour runtime and yet remains the director's most engaging and fluid work to date, that is if you have even a passing interest in magical realism tinged with Buddhist philosophy. At once visionary and startlingly grounded, the film relies on threadbare plotting to allow for maximum head-trip in the jungles of Thailand, where he has shot a great deal of his oeuvre. The eponymous relative (Thanapat Saisaymar) has returned to his farm in the jungle to essentially spend his few remaining days amongst nature and his closest relatives. He suffers from a fatal kidney disease that requires his kidney to be manually drained two or three times a day and a special diet, maintained by his sister-in-law, Jen (Jenjira Pongpas), and his nephew, Tong (Weerasethakul regular Sakda Kaewbuadee).
"Facing the jungle, the hills and vales, my past lives as an animal and other beings rise up before me" states a text that precedes the films ethereal prologue: A bull, tethered to a tree by farmers, breaks free and roams into the jungle where it encounters a ghost monkey with thick midnight-black hair and red eyes that glow like Christmas lights in the dusky jungle. The bull does not return (or perhaps he does, in the form of Boonmee) but the ghost monkey's return throughout the film, creeping through the thickets of flora or leaping from treetop to treetop. One makes a particular impression when it arrives unexpectedly one night for dinner with Boonmee, Jen and Tong and announces itself as the reincarnation of Boonmee's long-lost son, Boonsong. They are also joined by the ghost of Huay (Nattakarn Aphaiwonk), Boonmee's long-deceased wife who begins translucent but quickly becomes a physical incarnation capable of draining her husband's kidney and accompanying the family on walks in the jungle.
Certainty is not Weerasethakul's forte and it must be said that searching for concrete meaning in any of his films would be a fool's errand but this isn't to say that Uncle Boonmee qualifies as a solipsistic free-fall. The connections that bind humans with the natural world and the world of the beyond are essential to Weerasethakul's transcendental visions and there is a ubiquitous sense of universality to this masterwork that remains humble even while dealing with subjects that might crudely be described as "artsy." Indeed, a sequence in which a pot-marked princess sees a young, peerless reflection of herself in the waters beneath a waterfall before disrobing, shedding herself of her copious jewelry and giving herself over to a talking catfish which proceeds to trash between her open thighs may sound just a bit over-the-top, if not outright naïve, but it is detailed beautifully with the unerring sincerity that Weerasethakul has built his career on.
Was the catfish Boonmee in another life or just one of the princesses' servants transmigrated into a new form? One cannot be sure but Weerasethakul, who was raised a Buddhist and began his career as a photographer like Boonsong, takes delight in these ambiguities, raising a multitude of creatures and spirits that might very well be just different incarnations of Boonmee. In his final sequence, Boonmee takes a long trip into a neighboring cave system (he describes it as a womb) and describes a dream where, in a future city, a light gun is capable of turning you into images of multiple versions of yourself. Reincarnation and Buddhism certainly hold deeply personal sway to Weerasethakul but he does not, as some critics have suggested, sentimentalize his (erstwhile?) religion. The beings from the beyond that walk beside Boonmee, Jen and Tong are amiable, even friendly but they are not what you would call joyous or even particularly emotional. If anything, the open door between the world of the living and the dead is greeted with indifference by the ghost monkeys and the talking, amorous catfish.
Humorous, delicate and oddly moving, Uncle Boonmee ends with a moment of quiet profundity. Tong appears at Boonmee's funeral in the garb of a Buddhist monk but, unable to sleep in his jungle-based quarters, uses his cellphone and returns to the city where Jen is staying, quite matter-of-factly. He uses their shower and invites Jen out for dinner at a local karaoke joint but not before getting startled by the sight of duplicate versions of himself and Jen remaining in the hotel room. The material world of Uncle Boonmee, though filled with murder (Boonmee killed communists while in the army) and racism (Jen insists that all Laotians are smelly), remains essentially chaotic but Weerasethakul's view is anything but judgmental. Staring at another version of himself on the same plain of existence, Tong comes to a certain peace that the mysteries of the afterlife are in no need of explanation, an attitude mirrored in Weerasethakul's confidence in the cinematic image.
The official follow-up to Weerasethakul's equally masterful and unique Syndromes and a Century, Uncle Boonmee maintains an essential air of mystery for the whole of its nearly two-hour runtime and yet remains the director's most engaging and fluid work to date, that is if you have even a passing interest in magical realism tinged with Buddhist philosophy. At once visionary and startlingly grounded, the film relies on threadbare plotting to allow for maximum head-trip in the jungles of Thailand, where he has shot a great deal of his oeuvre. The eponymous relative (Thanapat Saisaymar) has returned to his farm in the jungle to essentially spend his few remaining days amongst nature and his closest relatives. He suffers from a fatal kidney disease that requires his kidney to be manually drained two or three times a day and a special diet, maintained by his sister-in-law, Jen (Jenjira Pongpas), and his nephew, Tong (Weerasethakul regular Sakda Kaewbuadee).
"Facing the jungle, the hills and vales, my past lives as an animal and other beings rise up before me" states a text that precedes the films ethereal prologue: A bull, tethered to a tree by farmers, breaks free and roams into the jungle where it encounters a ghost monkey with thick midnight-black hair and red eyes that glow like Christmas lights in the dusky jungle. The bull does not return (or perhaps he does, in the form of Boonmee) but the ghost monkey's return throughout the film, creeping through the thickets of flora or leaping from treetop to treetop. One makes a particular impression when it arrives unexpectedly one night for dinner with Boonmee, Jen and Tong and announces itself as the reincarnation of Boonmee's long-lost son, Boonsong. They are also joined by the ghost of Huay (Nattakarn Aphaiwonk), Boonmee's long-deceased wife who begins translucent but quickly becomes a physical incarnation capable of draining her husband's kidney and accompanying the family on walks in the jungle.
Certainty is not Weerasethakul's forte and it must be said that searching for concrete meaning in any of his films would be a fool's errand but this isn't to say that Uncle Boonmee qualifies as a solipsistic free-fall. The connections that bind humans with the natural world and the world of the beyond are essential to Weerasethakul's transcendental visions and there is a ubiquitous sense of universality to this masterwork that remains humble even while dealing with subjects that might crudely be described as "artsy." Indeed, a sequence in which a pot-marked princess sees a young, peerless reflection of herself in the waters beneath a waterfall before disrobing, shedding herself of her copious jewelry and giving herself over to a talking catfish which proceeds to trash between her open thighs may sound just a bit over-the-top, if not outright naïve, but it is detailed beautifully with the unerring sincerity that Weerasethakul has built his career on.
Was the catfish Boonmee in another life or just one of the princesses' servants transmigrated into a new form? One cannot be sure but Weerasethakul, who was raised a Buddhist and began his career as a photographer like Boonsong, takes delight in these ambiguities, raising a multitude of creatures and spirits that might very well be just different incarnations of Boonmee. In his final sequence, Boonmee takes a long trip into a neighboring cave system (he describes it as a womb) and describes a dream where, in a future city, a light gun is capable of turning you into images of multiple versions of yourself. Reincarnation and Buddhism certainly hold deeply personal sway to Weerasethakul but he does not, as some critics have suggested, sentimentalize his (erstwhile?) religion. The beings from the beyond that walk beside Boonmee, Jen and Tong are amiable, even friendly but they are not what you would call joyous or even particularly emotional. If anything, the open door between the world of the living and the dead is greeted with indifference by the ghost monkeys and the talking, amorous catfish.
Humorous, delicate and oddly moving, Uncle Boonmee ends with a moment of quiet profundity. Tong appears at Boonmee's funeral in the garb of a Buddhist monk but, unable to sleep in his jungle-based quarters, uses his cellphone and returns to the city where Jen is staying, quite matter-of-factly. He uses their shower and invites Jen out for dinner at a local karaoke joint but not before getting startled by the sight of duplicate versions of himself and Jen remaining in the hotel room. The material world of Uncle Boonmee, though filled with murder (Boonmee killed communists while in the army) and racism (Jen insists that all Laotians are smelly), remains essentially chaotic but Weerasethakul's view is anything but judgmental. Staring at another version of himself on the same plain of existence, Tong comes to a certain peace that the mysteries of the afterlife are in no need of explanation, an attitude mirrored in Weerasethakul's confidence in the cinematic image.
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