Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall Past Lives. (12A.)
Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
Starring Thanapat Saisaymar, Jenjira Pongpas, Sakda Kaewbuadee, Natthakarn Apahaiwonk. Thai with subtitles. 113 mins
A mixture of enchantment and tedium, the latest film by Thailand’s most internationally feted director is both inscrutably mystery and guilelessly straightforward.
It has the ingredients of a decent chiller – people living in an isolated location in a forest filled with ghostly apparition and strange, unearthly creatures with red piercing eyes but the film is haunting in the most life affirming way possible. It’s like a bedtime story, a whispered reassurance delivered by understanding smiling faces.
Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar) is suffering from kidney failure and senses the end is near. During a visit from his sister-in-law to his farm in the middle of dense jungle the spirit of his dead wife appears and he has visions of past and future lives. There’s also some stuff about man-sized Monkeys Ghosts with glowing red eyes that defies any immediate explanation.
Its award of the Palm Door at Cannes is bound to tempt a few extra people to give it a go. It’s definitely worth it but be prepared, the pace can fairly be described as meditative and was too much (or rather not enough) for two or three people at the screening I attended.
There are also plenty of striking images – the first appearance of the Monkey Ghost is creepily disconcerting; there is a magical trip to a cave and a sequence with still photos which is effective for no good reason I can think of. But there are also moments when it is not much to look at. The apparitions are of the old Rentaghost school of transparent phantoms while the Monkey Ghosts look like discarded Doctor Who monsters
It's as softly spoken a film as you could ever imagine. Even facing death or inexplicable supernatural occurrences the characters remain serene. The Palm Door may also lead people to expect something weighty and intense, whereas Boonmee seems to me to be very humbly expressing some basic spiritual ideas about reincarnation and the interconnected of all life.
Perhaps that’s why the French critics ripped into the film when it was released there in September. It would be very easy to do an Emperor’s New Clothes routine on it. It’s slight but substantive. On one level there’s nothing to it, on another there is absolutely everything.
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall Past Lives. (12A.)
Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
Starring Thanapat Saisaymar, Jenjira Pongpas, Sakda Kaewbuadee, Natthakarn Apahaiwonk. Thai with subtitles. 113 mins
A mixture of enchantment and tedium, the latest film by Thailand’s most internationally feted director is both inscrutably mystery and guilelessly straightforward.
It has the ingredients of a decent chiller – people living in an isolated location in a forest filled with ghostly apparition and strange, unearthly creatures with red piercing eyes but the film is haunting in the most life affirming way possible. It’s like a bedtime story, a whispered reassurance delivered by understanding smiling faces.
Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar) is suffering from kidney failure and senses the end is near. During a visit from his sister-in-law to his farm in the middle of dense jungle the spirit of his dead wife appears and he has visions of past and future lives. There’s also some stuff about man-sized Monkeys Ghosts with glowing red eyes that defies any immediate explanation.
Its award of the Palm Door at Cannes is bound to tempt a few extra people to give it a go. It’s definitely worth it but be prepared, the pace can fairly be described as meditative and was too much (or rather not enough) for two or three people at the screening I attended.
There are also plenty of striking images – the first appearance of the Monkey Ghost is creepily disconcerting; there is a magical trip to a cave and a sequence with still photos which is effective for no good reason I can think of. But there are also moments when it is not much to look at. The apparitions are of the old Rentaghost school of transparent phantoms while the Monkey Ghosts look like discarded Doctor Who monsters
It's as softly spoken a film as you could ever imagine. Even facing death or inexplicable supernatural occurrences the characters remain serene. The Palm Door may also lead people to expect something weighty and intense, whereas Boonmee seems to me to be very humbly expressing some basic spiritual ideas about reincarnation and the interconnected of all life.
Perhaps that’s why the French critics ripped into the film when it was released there in September. It would be very easy to do an Emperor’s New Clothes routine on it. It’s slight but substantive. On one level there’s nothing to it, on another there is absolutely everything.
