Release date: 25 June 2010
Run time: 114 minutes
Certificate: 12A
From Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul comes a film that is unlike anything else made before or since. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is a complex and thoughtful contemplation on death, reincarnation and loss.
As the titular Uncle Boonmee, suffering from kidney problems, sees out his final days on his farm surrounded by loved ones, he reflects on his current and previous lives and on people he has lost along the way. People such as his deceased wife and missing son return, the former as a ghost and the latter as a ghost monkey, and help him and his still living relatives through the process of Boonmee’s death. There is no terror when these apparitions appear; they are treated as normal as a living human being would be. Weerasethakul skilfully brings these forms of the living and the dead together with beauty and love. Death and reincarnation are accepted and welcomed.
Shot on 16mm film instead of digital video, the film has a distinct grainy texture to it, further establishing the sense of extinction as well as reinvention. Cinema will always be here with us and, as Boonmee himself, will not disappear in death but merely return different. Uncle Boonmee draws out the beauty of the world with long static shots; Weerasethakul masterfully creates an incredibly languid tone throughout. This is further backd up by the sound, from sparingly used and minimalist instrumentals to the almost constant but gentle buzz of insects in the surrounding forests. It engages with your senses in a way very few films do and is so engrossing that time is forgotten in the real world.
Weerasethakul’s deep and meditative film can surprise you with new discoveries through multiple viewings. The director generally steers clear of definitive answers or explanations for what the film means; he happily leaves it to audience interpretation. Scenes that may not seem relevant to the plot (a princess at one point has a sexual encounter with a talking catfish) require thought and connection from the audience. This might not be at the top of everyone’s wish list for a film but persevere with this spectacular journey and there is great emotional and spiritual reward to be had.
5/5
Cinema in its truest form as art, Uncle Boonmee is a beautifully complex and thoughtful meditation on the living, the dead, and the reincarnation.
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