CIFF 2010 - Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010, Thailand)

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is the first of director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s films I’ve seen, though I have Tropical Malady at home right now. (For about a month now. And it’s the second time I’ve had it.) I’m no stranger to atmospheric, challenging mood pieces, but it’s hard to know exactly what to think about Uncle Boonmee, even a few hours later. Perhaps a few days or a few weeks would help, perhaps not – it’s certainly a challenging narrative, being that there’s little narrative at all. Uncle Boonmee is dying, and his sister-and-law and nephew come to his farm in the north of Thailand to help care for him in his final days. But they’re not the only ones around – Uncle Boonmee is visited by ghosts, beast-ghosts, and visions of what are seemingly memories of his past lives. As is somewhat expected by such a description, the movie is quite dreamlike, but Weerasethakul anchors it with strong emotional currents and an excellent atmospheric sensibility (the film is far creepier than I expected – I blame the Monkey Ghosts). In many ways, it reminded me of Pen-Ek Ratanaraung’s Nymph, which I saw at last year’s Chicago International Film Festival (maybe it was all that Thai jungle), but with a far greater resonance. I’m still not quite sure what it all means, and I am a bit surprised that the Cannes jury took to it like they did, but I think I liked it – quite a lot. It’s a cipher, but a very humanistic one.