Loong Boonmee raleuk chat

In a spirit haunted primordial jungle a joyful man is quietly, harmlessly dying, though there is never less than a smile on his face.

The phases of his life play out before him. He is a farmer, a soldier, teller of myths, a husband, a father, an uncle. All these things quietly take their place in the narrative until the time when he must enter the underworld and pass on, guided by those who love him, both living and dead.

As Boonmee reflects on his life the arc of Thailand plays out as well. From contemplative agrarian past, through the time of fables, to the war with the communist and on into the disaffected, modernist future where we see ourselves seeing ourselves seeing ourselves.

All told with a minimal amount of fuss and effects, sewn together with threads of human intimacy, small gestures, a little sly humor and an over all meditative, knowing, measured rhythm.

There was another movie out last year that claimed it was about dreams... an American film. It made a lot of money but felt false and boisterous. Nothing about it felt like dreaming to me at all. This movie IS a dream. Everything about it feels like a dream. The difference between the two is the difference between spectacle and ritual. Uncle Boonmee is ritualized cinema in its purest form, ancient in its wisdom and avant-garde in its form.

For those who have not heard of Thai filmmaker and artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul, I guess you must have heard of his latest film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, winning the Palme d'Or at last year's Cannes Film Festival, and being the first Southeast Asian director to do so. That should interest you to take that leap of faith to experience the coming of Uncle Boonmee yourself, and that feeling of being frustrated yet enthralled, fascinated yet perplexed, all at the same time, fighting to stay engaged, and making sense of the visuals flitting around dreamscapes.

This film is like a diamond with many different cuts made to make it shine, each representing a facet from which you can choose to look at, or interpret from. Like a prism which dissipates light shone on it, your take on this film will likely be entirely different from mine, and what more, you'll probably have different takes on each of the different aspects of the film, since the scenes that make it up are as disparate as can be. It makes the film going experience a little more interesting since it's open, and never crystal clear given the takeaways for one based on one's journey in life thus far.

At its crux, the story is exactly that of its title, where we see Uncle Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar) living the last days of his life with kidney failure, choosing like most Asians do with the preference to live out the last days at the comfort of one's home, rather than at a sterile hospital. It is said that those on the death bed will see their life flash pass their eyes, but for Uncle Boonmee, his plodding walk toward the light at the end of the tunnel, means giving the film a lot more exploratory path to tread on, with a look at what his past lives were as well, ranging from the suggested buffalo, to even a member of the aristocracy (and that much talked about scene with the catfish. Hmm... maybe he could be the catfish too!)

Things get a lot stranger of course, even as it seems that Boonmee can remember his previous lives before reincarnation. As far as my limited grasp of that process goes, one has to drink up a liquid that will make you forget what you've gone through, and one's karma accumulation has bearings on what next you'll be incarnated, with the human form being quite OK, rather than an animal. I suppose Boonmee in his previous life did OK to be reincarnated as a human in this life, and in his last days get visited by his late wife (Natthakarn Aphaiwonk) with whom he shares a poignant, heart-wrenching scene with, and also a visit from his son (Geerasak Kulhong behind heavy makeup), whom you'd have already have an idea of from the various promotional material, and no, he's not captured in a picture just because the camera did not have an anti-red eye function.

Don't be shy if you don't understand the film. For starters, I suppose any film based on dreams and fantasy opens itself up to a lot of leeway in interpretation, and not taking everything verbatim, verbose or literal. Even the auteur himself has said that you "don't need to understand everything" in an interview with The Guardian, probably a relief for those like me who emerged from the screening with more questions than to know where to begin asking them. Like most art films, this one moves at a leisurely pace, and is filled with plenty of art house sensibilities and techniques, and while I won't say will reward the patient viewer, it will challenge you to think through about what you've just seen, and I felt it was easier to make sense of individual scenes, than as a whole when trying to fit the jigsaw in a coherent fashion.

To paraphrase Bruce Lee, this film is like water, having no form of its own, yet taking up form based on the viewer's individual experience and interpretation. I guess that's what makes Uncle Boonmee unique, coming from a filmmaker who's bold to conceptualize this piece of art that works itself through different strokes for different folks.

Incoherent, unpredictable, mystical, yet undoubtedly original, "Uncle Boonmee Who Call Recall His Past Lives" is a pseudo-profound cinematic venture that reeks with allegory and mythical undertones. After watching this film, I've come to a conclusion that it is certainly not for everyone.

Despite its strange recurring themes about supernatural beings, spirits, Buddhist philosophy, karma, and reincarnation, it will bathe you with its gentleness and natural ornateness. It is intimate and surprisingly elegant, though not without its flaws.

Much like Terrence Malick's "Tree of Life," this motion picture lacks a linear narrative. It doesn't have what most of us would require from a movie: a plot. It heavily relies on hypnotic images captured into still wide frames that often drag longer than the easily-bored viewer can bear.

Then there's the noticeable absence of a musical score. You never get to hear music until the last few minutes of the film; all you'll hear besides the dialogues are crickets, the rustling of leaves, a water buffalo, the sound of an electric fly swatter zapping flying bugs, footsteps, a waterfall, and a talking catfish that made love to a disfigured princess.

Simple and ambitious; primitive and modern; eerie and comforting; senseless and driven; and dull and brilliant, this Thai film gives you a one-of-a-kind viewing experience. If you are into esoteric art films, this is something I would highly recommend. If you loathe movies that seem to have no meaning, then this is not for you.

Confounding as it is, "Uncle Boonmee..." is a film that doesn't need to be understood; it simply has to be FELT.

This movie is meditation, a state of concentration. I only wish I wasn't tired when I saw it last night because my concentration waned, I could feel the movie slipping between my fingers and trying to wilfully sustain the experience can't work. This is a Buddhist film, but it's Thai Buddhist (the form they practice in Thailand came from Sri Lanka and is from the earliest strata of Buddhism), it's spiritual but it's not esoteric in the manner of the Tibetans, ancient but not arcane. It's not Buddhist because Boonmee may or may not be recalling on his deathbed his past and future lives, or because there are ghosts and demons and a talking catfish, this is colorful lore, the illusory flowers of mind. It's Buddhist because it's aware of the moment. Not so strangely, it's the fantastical bits that seem to make the film watchable for most people, yet if we come to this film to satisfy our need for something to happen, we break the spell. The spell here for me is the awareness of life as is, the clear vision of a heaven in the present world.

Here's a camera that doesn't describe a world, it allows it to emerge in its own time. Sometimes this tests my patience but I appreciate that it doesn't make amends and concessions. Cessation, stillness of mind, true perception, these are all vital and desirable here, and they can only happen in their own time, they can't be forced. I appreciate that and I appreciate the limitations of my own viewing. In those moments that my eyes and the movie adjust, I am blissful. Two moments exemplify this, the one is a table out in the verandah by night, insects buzzing around a light and everything is quiet, this is the summer night for me. The other is Uncle Boonmee lying down on a bed in his honeykeeping shed, it's noon and crickets are humming from the trees, this is the summer day. It reminds me of the remembrance of spring in Kiarostami's The Wind Will Carry Us.

The finale is rather interesting, despite the above. A lot of viewers seem to regard it as Weeresethakul's comment on the alienation fostered by the niceties of modern society. It is its own comment on the place of Buddhism in one such society, where the garments of the monk mean nothing, but instead of inferring that a day's hard work out in the open is preferable to watching TV Weeresethakul could have not made a movie to begin with (that calls for us to sit alone from one another in a dark room where flickering lights are projected).

But I don't think that such a simple conclusion was what was intended. I see vision that wants to encompass the world of ambiguities. The family may be sitting in the silent, staring at a box, but I got the sense of quiet warmth coming from the simple togetherness, a certain soothing affect that is possible only in people who can sit together without a need for words. Who can relax simply in the presence of each other.

This is valuable work, and I believe it will be cherished by viewers who feel the chakras of cinema should be purified and set ablaze now and then.

In order to appreciates the film, you have to understand that this movie is not just a normal film where you can expects classical narrative and plot. the directer not only have Buddhism as a philosophical point of view but he also put a little bit of Thai historical and political aspects in to the film.

In my opinion, the theme of this film is the man's struggle from human condition and transformation.

here are some few points I'd like to make concerning the film:

1. Man and Illusion

Before humankind, there was nature, which is pure and true. there are trees and wind and animals and so on. then there are man, which is basically another living specie. both animal and human have the same drive (sex, food, shelter etc.) the only different between man and animal is the ability to understand "sign" (read semiotic for more understanding) thus, human being created language, painting and symbol and so on. in other word, because our brain can perceived sign, so we can created ART. Art was created by man since the days of the cave man i.e. cave painting in Lascaux, France. (did you noticed that there are also cave paintings in the film?)

Man are proud that we are the only specie that can create and appreciate art, but what we didn't realized is that we are also the only specie that have the ability the created the illusion/lie/falsehood. Because of evolution, our unique brain can store memories and emotion, mix it up, and then created stuffs from it. because of this, the more time pass, the more we are far away from the truth; culture, law, politic, social status etc. are all MAN-MADE ILLUSION

2. Illusion of Dualism

It's seems like our perceived reality of "duality in nature" is embedded in our brain. we separated things into yin/yang mentality: day/night, good/bad, man/woman, live/death. one scene in particular shows how Boonmee kill the worms in his tamarind tree because "it's pest". then the next scene he show his sister the bee hive and seems very protective of it (he explain to his sister to avoid the larvae area on the plate). When he told his sister that his condition is the result of his karma from killing COMMUNIST and PEST, his sister replied "it's alright because you have good intention". When did killing other being can become good intention? Aren't communist human too? Aren't pests and bees are both insects?

3. The role of photography/Film, Memories, and Reality

Roland Barthes, in his book "Camera Lucinda", explained that a picture creates a falseness in the illusion of 'what is', where 'what was' would be a more accurate description. We can see a lot of scene involved photography; from the photos Boonmee shows to his dead wife as a proof of her funeral, the obsession of his son before he became a monkey, the final scene which Boonmee told the story about his dream etc. (this is an important scene, we will talk about it later)

4. In the playground, we created the rules, then we fought each other

In the film, we see peoples who of separated by this so-called man-made illusion, for example, different nationalities and spoken languages (Thai vs Laos), (Laos vs French) (Isan vs. Central Thai) etc. If you know little bit about Thai history, you will understand that the director also talk about the official vs the people / communism vs democracy(?).

in the final scene where Boonmee told the story about his dream, we see people wearing uniform. They are obviously appointed as "Soldier/Army". Then in the next photo we saw these soldiers captured the Monkeys Ghost. If you watch the film until this point, by now you should realized that the Monkey ghost is the allegory of the Communist.

then in the next photo, we saw that the soldier now taking their clothes off and play other kind of war game (throwing rock). The most funny thing is in the last photo, we saw 2 circles draw on the ground. In my opinion, the director suggest that countries, border dispute and war are nothing but a child's game.

5. Jāti: literally birth, but life is understood as starting at conception

the word "ชาติ" in Thai word derived from Sanskrit "Jāti", when translated to English it simply means "live". hence the name of the film "Uncle Boonmee who can recall his past lives" but in fact, the word Jati is the term in Buddhism which is not simply translate as "live" but have a lot more profound meaning.

By the way, I have the same feeling watching this film and Kubrick's 2001: Space Odyssey. Maybe because it also dealt with the theme of human condition and transformation, but this film is from the Eastern Philosophy point of view, of course.