Like most of his feature films, Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” is set in Isan province, where he grew up. It playfully invokes both the lifestyle and animistic beliefs of the Northeast country folk, and the primitive magic of early Thai cinema, relating both of these to his musings on reincarnation.
Since commercial returns or widespread support have never been factored into Weerasethakul’s career, its surprise win of the Palme d’Or Sunday will seal its favorable future in festivals and specialist releases.
Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar) who is afflicted with acute kidney failure, returns to his country estate in Isan to spend his last days under the care of his devoted yet no-nonsense sister-in-law Jen (Jenjiro Pongpas), nephew Tong (Sakda Kaewbuadee) and Jaai, a Burmese worker.
One evening, while the family is relaxing on their terrace, the apparition of Boonmee’s dead wife Huay (Nattakarn Aphaiwonk) appears, followed by long-lost son Boonsong. Boonsong, who looks like a Yeti with red laser beam eyes, recounts how his interest in photography led him deep into the jungle in search of Monkey Ghosts, until he himself is transformed into one.
The matter-of-fact way in which the humans interact with dead or otherworldly beings make for some deadpan humor: upon seeing Thuy in halogenic form and Boonsong in a rubbery gorilla suit, Tong remarks, “I feel like the strange one here.” There is also eerie poignancy in the way spiritual beings hover around Boonmee as they sense his impending transition to another world.
Inspired
The film was inspired by a book by a Buddhist abbot recording accounts of people who remembered their past lives. Although Boonmee attributes his illness to the karma of his having killed too many “Commies” and rid his farm of bugs, Weerasethakul does not broach the subject in terms of causality or retribution, nor does he tie Boonmee’s past lives to any tangible persona or timeline. The cave which becomes his resting place is also where his first life began. The crucial point he recalls is that at his genesis, he was “neither human nor animal, neither man nor woman.”
This makes the structure free-floating and esoteric, incorporating myth (underwater sex between a facially-tainted princess and a catfish), politics (photographs of soldiers hinting at military-related human disappearances) and parallel worlds (Tong and Jen in different places at the same time).
This view of reincarnation as all beings coexisting in one non-linear universal consciousness is also central to Apitchatpong’s conception of cinema as the medium with the power to replay past lives and connect the human world to animal or spiritual ones. That may be why he shot the last scenes involving parallel worlds in 16mm, as homage to the format of film in his childhood memory.
His casting of actors or roles (like a monk, a Burmese worker) from previous films in also a kind of reincarnation of the director’s cinematic past lives.
The director’s film language has always been experimental, intuitive and personal to the point of mystical (or mystifying to a mainstream non-Thai audience). By comparison, “Uncle Boonmee” employs less difficult cinema vocabulary, staying away from any avant garde filming technique and allowing one to tune into its sleepy, meditative frequency. The natural locations (especially the cave glittering in the dark) exude cosmic energy, while sound extracted from wildlife plays as significant a role as an animate being.
Weerasethakul, has built a career with dream-like movies that shun traditional storytelling.
Critic
The 39-year-old is also a staunch critic of censorship by the government in his country, which is currently in the throes of political unrest that has killed dozens and injured hundreds more over the last two months.
Apichatpong works outside the strict confines of Thailand’s action-film studio system to make movies such as the surreal reincarnation tale “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” that won the Palme d’Or on Sunday.
He is a darling of the international festival circuit and a regular at Cannes, where in 2002 he won an award in a sidebar competition for “Blissfully Yours” and two years later took the jury prize with “Tropical Malady.”
The latter was a two-parter that begins as a city love story between a soldier and a farm worker before switching to a frenzy of sex and death in the jungle.
Apichatpong, who calls himself Joe for short, said after receiving the Cannes award from festival jury president Tim Burton that he wanted to thank “the spirits in Thailand that surrounded us” while making the film.
He said during the festival that he personally has seen ghosts.
The Hollywood Reporter film magazine said the director’s work was based on the philosophy of reincarnation “as all beings coexisting in one non-linear universal consciousness.”
Meanwhile, Thailand hailed Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s surprise win at the Cannes film festival as a much-needed boost for a nation that has been rocked by a deadly political crisis.
“It’s brilliant. I deeply hoped that his film would win,” said Culture Minister Teera Slukpetch, promising the avant garde film-maker a hero’s welcome when he returns to Thailand.
“This kind of victory is what we really need at this time of crisis,” he said, as the kingdom emerged from the worst civil unrest in modern history which has left 86 people dead and 1,900 injured since March.
Anti-government protesters were forcibly evicted last week from their protest encampment in the heart of Bangkok, ending two months of street rallies punctuated by deadly clashes between “Red Shirts” and security forces.
As Oscar winners Javier Bardem and Juliette Binoche took the main acting honours on Sunday, littleknown arthouse director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” edged out bookmakers’ favourites including the latest by Britain’s Mike Leigh and France’s Xavier Beauvois.
“I’d like to send a message home: the prize is for you,” Apichatpong said in a message to his fellow Thais as he received the Palme from the head of the festival jury, US film-maker Tim Burton.
Apichatpong can expect a hero’s welcome on his return home from the French Riviera to Thailand, a country still reeling from the bloody crushing of a months-long anti-government protests.
In a related story, a surreal Thai movie that scooped top prize at this year’s Cannes festival divided the European press Monday, hailed by some as the best of a “dull” crop but dismissed by others as boring or “grotesque”.
In France, which received three awards Sunday night including best actress for Juliette Binoche, the verdict split down the middle on the surprise win.
Le Monde newspaper said the Cannes jury, headed by US director Tim Burton, chose to reward “an outsider of the cinematic world” among a “relatively weak” crop of films running this year for the best film Palme d’Or.
The popular Le Parisien newspaper called the choice of the Thai film a “Palme prize for the strange,” while Liberation described it as a “magical and unsettling film” that provided the epilogue to a “dull” festival.”
For Le Figaro however, “Uncle Boonmee” was “boring, incomprehensible and hallucinatory” and it was “the Palm prize for boredom.”
In Britain, the mood was generally positive, despite the disappointment of home-favourite Mike Leigh missing out on the top award.
With “thin pickings” the jury did well to select the Thai film, The Independent said, “in a world dominated by big Hollywood franchises, nobody will begrudge Uncle Boonmee his place in the Cannes sun.”
Source : http://www.arabtimesonline.com
