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Uncle Boonmee who can recall his past lives
Zelle / Cell

"Palme d'Or" in Cannes for best feature film:
"Uncle Boonmee who can recall his past lives"

Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul on Sunday took the Palme d'Or top prize at the Cannes film festival with a surreal, hypnotic meditation on reincarnation.

The 39-year-old's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives sees a lost son return as a monkey ghost, a disfigured princess have sex with a catfish and a dead wife return to guide her husband into the afterlife.

Apichatpong used his trip to Cannes to denounce his country's tough censorship rules. He told reporters there that "Uncle Boonmee" was a parable "on a cinema that's also dying or dead."

(Taken from AFP)

Story >>

Uncle Boonmee is suffering from kidney failure. As an avid practitioner of Yoga, he is well aware of his body. He knows that he will die in 48 hours. He feels his illness must be related with his bad karma. He has killed too many communists, he says. Boonmee calls his distant relatives to take him back from hospital to die at home, a longan farm. There, they are greeted by the ghost of his deceased wife who has re-appeared to take care of him.

His lost son also returns from the jungle in an ape-like form. The son has mated with a creature known as a ‘monkey ghost' and has lived in the trees with her for the past 15 years. On the first night, Boonmee talks about his past lives that he remembers. On a second night, while the ghost wife is doing his kidney dialysis, Boonmee has a sudden urge to visit a place she has mentioned. So the group takes a journey into the jungle at night. It is full of animals and spirits.

They finally reach a cave on top of the hill. Boonmee realizes that this is the cave in which he was born in the first life that he can remember. Then he passes away, taking with him tales that span hundreds of years.

Cast >>

Natthakarn APHAIWONK - Huay (Boonmee's Wife)

 

Credits / Director >>

 

 

In his short career, Apichatpong Weerasethakul has come to be recognised as one of the most original voices in Asian and world cinema. His four feature films and his short films have won him widespread international recognition and numerous festival prizes. »Blisfuly Yours« (2002) won the prize of »Un Certain Regard«, and »Tropical Malady« (2004) the Jury Prize of the Cannes Film Festival Competition. His feature Syndromes and a Century (2006) was the first Thai film to be selected for competition at the Venice Film Festival. With »Tropical Malady«, »Syndromes and a Century« has been recognised as one of the best films of the last decade in several 2010 polls.

Apichatpong was born in Bangkok and grew up in Khon Kaen in north-eastern Thailand. He holds a degree in Architecture from Khon Kaen University and a Master of Fine Arts in filmmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He began making film and video shorts in 1994, and completed his first feature in 2000. Lyrical and often fascinatingly mysterious, his works deal with memory, subtly addressing personal politics and social issues. Working outside of the strict Thai film studio system, he is active in promoting independent filmmaking through his company »Kick the Machine«, founded in 1999. He has also mounted exhibitions and installations in many countries since 1998. In 2007 The Thai Ministry of Culture awarded Apichatpong with one of Thailand's most important awards for visual artists, the Silpatorn Award. In 2008, he became the first artist to receive the Fine Prize from the 55th Carnegie International, USA, and last year he was short listed for one of the art world's most prestigious awards, the Hugo Boss Award with the winner to be announced in 2010.

»Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives« compliments Apichatpong's ‘Primitive project', which deals with ideas of extinction and the recollection of past lives. Other elements of the project are the ambitious multiscreen installation, ‘Primitive', which was presented in 2009 in Munich, Liverpool, and at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and two short films, ‘A Letter to Uncle Boonmee' and ‘Phantoms of Nabua'.

Selected Filmography:

2006 »Syndromes and a Century« (Sang Sattawat)
2004 »Tropical Malady« (Sud Pralad)
2002 »Blisfuly Yours« (Sud Sanaeha)
2000 »Mysterious Object at Noon« (Dokfar Nai Meu Marn)

ACTUAL REVIEW IN "Screen Daily"

Von Mark Adams

The wonderfully titled Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is a beautifully entrancing film… simple in story but complex in structure and subtext, and likely to deeply please those who are fans of director-artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is an elegantly artistic film that is both visually arresting and engagingly entertaining.
Accessibility for those audiences unfamiliar with Weerasethakul’s previous work - such as Syndromes And A Century (2006) and Tropical Malady (2004) – will be limited, but the film must be destined for a healthy festival life and also art-house release for buyers aware of niche markets, or who have handled his films before.
The film is a beautifully assembled affair, with certain scenes staged with painterly composure, and also increasingly moving as the subtle story develops. Plus Apichatpong Weerasethakul is not afraid of adding in moments of surreal humour – often laugh-out-loud moments for that – which helps the pacing of the film.
Uncle Boonmee (Thanapat Salsaymar) is suffering from acute liver failure, and has decided to spend his last days in the Thai countryside, surrounded by his loved ones.
To his surprise, he is visited by the ghost of his dead wife (Natthakarn Aphaiwonk) and also his long lost son, who returns home in a non-human form – that of a man-sized hairy animal with blazing red eyes.
He dwells on his past lives as he contemplates the reasons for his illness, and towards the end of the film treks through the jungle, with his family, to reach a mysterious and beautiful hilltop cave – the birthplace of his first life and where he wants to end his current one.
Weerasethakul never actually makes it clear who or what Uncle Boonmee’s past lives were – they could be the buffalo who escapes from the farm at the start of the film, the catfish which sexually toys with a facially disfigured princess in the centre of the film, or even flies that are swatted by a battery-powered fan – but rather lets the audience’s imagination decide.
The film was shot in the North-East of Thailand, and the lush and visually arresting jungle backdrop is as much a character of the film as the actors in the foreground. In the section devoted to the disfigured princess (Wallapa Mongkolprasert) she is filmed wading into the pool beneath a beautiful waterfall as she talks to a catfish/water-ghost. The sequence is painterly in composition as it takes reference to classic Thai cinema.
Similarly Uncle Boonmee’s final trek through the jungle to a hidden cave is visually arresting as well as being deeply poignant, with amateur actor Thanapat Salsaymar appropriately low-key and modest. His simplicity and honesty works perfectly alongside the more surreal aspects of the film.
Most memorable, though, as the animal ghosts – one of whom is Boonmee’s long lost son – who emerges from the forest. In a charming reference to old-fashioned horror movies, these ghosts are simply actors in cheap gorilla suits, replete with blazing red eyes to distract from the amusingly ordinariness of their costumes. Again this is Weerasethakul having some fun, and offering his audience the chance to laugh out loud.
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is an elegantly artistic film that is both visually arresting and engagingly entertaining. Certainly not a film for everyone – but certainly one that will stay with an audience once watched.

Taken from "Screen Daily"