User reviews

When it comes to art films, there's always been a divide. More casual viewers are more likely to dismiss a lot of them as pretentious and stupid, film buffs are more likely to find them beautiful and above anything you'll spend ten to fifteen to watch in a multiplex today. "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" is one of those films, however, that even divides film buffs amongst themselves. Despite winning Palme D'or, the film has many detractors, and a 6.6 on this site(as of this review). 6.6 isn't bad but far below what you would expect given some of the praise. So, what IS this film exactly?

The title character is a man who is slowly dying, living out with his family for his remaining days. Those days become consumed by flashbacks to past lives (though it's not always clear what that life is or how it relates), being visited by the ghost of his wife, and trying to plan for his after life. The film has a very loose structure. Many people find the pace unbearably slow, I think in part because the film doesn't really build up to anything. To call this film meditative would not be a hyperbole, it's a mellow kind of movie. After watching it, I felt different, like I had been given the world's greatest massage, my muscles loosened up and everything, it's not like anything I've gotten from a movie before. This is helped by the beautiful scenery and cinematography. This is a movie that, if you can't watch it on a big screen with loud speakers, should at least be watched in a dark room with headphones if watching on a laptop/desktop. There's little in way of soundtrack (except for one beautiful song later in the film), but the sounds of nature are beautifully captured.

The actual narrative is composed of many smaller stories, all of which connect with Boonmee. All of them work on their own level, and together do create a low key but very, very touching film. the scene where Boonmee talks to the spirit of his wife about the anxiety he used to have giving speeches may be the highlight there, though the princess story and the final flashback are also up there.

This is a film you have to watch on it's terms. You have to be willing to watch it as a more meditative kind of experience, to simply enjoy it the way one might enjoy a hike in the woods of a car ride. If that's not what you want out of a film, avoid this at all costs.

For me, personally, I was a little hesitant going in, given how divided opinion was, but I'm glad I did, and will certainly watch again. It's a powerful film. It won't necessarily leave you in tears, but it will likely leave an impression on those who gravitate towards things like this.

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.

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.

I'll be frank. Whether or not you enjoy this movie will depend largely on whether or not you are a die hard film buff or a casual movie goer looking for a story. If you are the later, then aside from the eerie sight of the red eyed Monkey Spirits, you will come away disappointed.

That said, there is much in Uncle Boonmee to like, but like the Buddhist aesthetic the film is steeped in, you have to be ready for it. Because this is one film that demands a lot of patience of the viewer.

Set in rural Isan Province, Thailand, the story follows the last days of a well to-do farmer, the titular Boonmee, who is dying of a terminal illness. Like all dying men, Boonmee can't help but wax philosophic, both on the nature of death itself and on his own past mistakes, and one night while eating with his family is suddenly and abruptly joined by two spirits, the first of his dead wife, Huay, the second that of his missing son, Boonsong, who has inexplicably been transformed into a black monkey. Anyone even remotely familiar with the prior work of Director Weerasethakul (try saying that with a mouthful of marbles), particularly Tropical Malady, will know that such surrealism is a common theme in his films, with its signature mix of traditional Thai Buddhism and animist lore. As in Tropical Malady, the day belongs to the living and the mundane, but night brings on ghosts, animal spirits, the shades of ancestors, and the inner musings and anxieties of Weerasethakul's characters.

The film itself feels much like a Buddhist temple; with its long uninterrupted and unadorned shots, and its devotion to capturing trivial moments, it is not so much a vehicle for storytelling as contemplation. The last film to be shot with celluloid as opposed to digital, it is the director's self-admitted funerary ode to a dying medium.

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.

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.

This was a hard film to rate. It pains me not to have fallen in love with it. Here, then, are some scattered thoughts of my failed romance.

It started with a very sour first date. It also ended there.

I went in looking to see a film that won the Golden Palm at Cannes 2010. Knowing this fact, and having seen the trailer, I went to the theater expecting to see an art house piece with Oriental metaphysical overtones. What I saw was, to be sure, a decisively original and at times hauntingly beautiful film, but one that I found an absolute bore: a film that, to me, seemed a tiresome, dysfunctional, inchoate potpourri of disjunct elements that never quite flowed together.

Perhaps false expectations can ruin a movie. Or, perhaps, let me hazard the unlikely suggestion, there is nothing here to salvage? For let me be clear: I wanted to like this film, I really did. It is important to reward originality and craftsmanship, always. And I respect the film (or at least its intentions). But the fact remains (here comes the unavoidable, brutal, decisive fact), I didn't like it. I only liked a few scenes here and there. Some parts I hated, absolutely loathed. Despite a few glimmerings of genius - and an undoubted air of originality - it seems to be that Uncle Boonmee is a needlessly difficult, slow-paced and ultimately unsuccessful film... despite the fact that it gets to a great start and carries a lot of potential all the time. Perhaps the "elusive" quality mentioned by the high-praise reviewers is a mask behind which there is no greater coherence to be found. Perhaps the inchoate structure and the belaboured pacing are not marks of genius but amateurish vices committed in the name of some grand vision that shall forever remain out of our material reach. I fault this film not because of its weird themes or its occasional dream logic. On the contrary, I think that it may even be that the film wasn't weird enough or dreamy enough; perhaps this film's use of "magic realism" is a kind of materialistic trap that forces the movie into long, never-ending sequences of absolutely no consequence. The main vice of the film is its unadventurous reliance on fixed camera frames and boring, dragging shots. Editing between the scenes is tortuously snail-paced and almost morphine-mimicking in its soporific entailments.

Whatever the reason, the film feels too much jumbled together, like some heavy stone stuck in a spiritual limbo, or a unicorn eating a burger, or some such nonsense. Ironically, the main stumbling block for the film, if you ask me, is not its "artsiness", but its clumsy down-to-Earthness. The film seems to be grasping for some supreme realism and materialism underneath its spiritual, religious and metaphysical surface. But the result is a kind of Ken Loach of Buddhism: a boring materialism under the guise of animistic spiritualism. Just plain realism without a purpose: people doing boring stuff for boring reasons.

Or perhaps all this is wrong; perhaps all this analysis is useless. Perhaps we are back to false expectations again: I expected one thing and saw another. But who cares WHY I didn't like it? Surely all this is uninteresting? Well, perhaps, but let me say that my personal dilemma - how I wanted to love this film so much but ended up almost hating it - is an interesting story to tell, because this film has the potential to divide audiences totally, into "haters" and "praisers" - and very few lukewarm receivers in between. I definitely recommend this film to be seen, but I am not going to play the art house card, the usual cop-out: "I'm sure it's a masterpiece, I just didn't get it", and then give it a score of 8 or 9 despite having hated it myself, out of some duty-bound, deranged, depersonalized sense of professional duty or peer pressure to agree with everybody else, or - worse yet - pretend to love the film because of some unhealthy respect for the jury at Cannes or the snidely snobbish world film press. No, this would be a scandalous road to take. One must stand by one's convictions, and it is my personal conviction, based on one viewing, that here we have an ultimately pretty bad film: a failed exercise at grafting something sublime. Despite its undoubtedly pure and original intentions and beginnings, this film remains an overrated (soon to be over-venerated), perplexing, highly original turd - interesting but ultimately vacuous, like some of Buñuel's lesser works, or like Andy Warhol's art.

Whether I change my opinion after a second, or third, viewing remains to be seen. So, despite my dislike of the film's overall structure, I feel that this is an important film, and I can easily recommend it to all movie lovers. Everyone remotely interested in film should go and see, form their OWN opinion, of such a remarkable cinematic piece: a film that, despite its flaws and vices, is undoubtedly a creation of unique character and visionary qualities. Weerasethakul's directorial voice is loud and persistent, and its echo will surely be heard for many years to come across the lands - and cinema screens - the world over.

Now, let him only refine his voice a bit and convince us skeptics.

Whether my love for this film will grow, who knows. I'm preparing for the inevitable "second date" - the future second attempt at falling in love - with a strange expectation of more melancholy moods.

"Facing the jungle, the hills and vales, my past lives as an animal and other beings rise up before me." This quote appears on the screen at the start of the film and is indicative of what we'll see. Uncle Boonmee is a farm owner in rural Thailand, up in the hills, and is dying of kidney disease. In this period of his life visions of past incarnations and other supernatural visions will appear to him. The movie is staggeringly and outrageously beautiful, whether it's the way light is falling on coloured mosquito nets in a darkened room or its fractured scatter on a quartz cavern, or a vision of a palanquined princess seen through veils, being carried through a susurrating forest on a narrow track.

Apitchatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul's profound respect for life comes through well in the film. A recurring theme in his films are medical scenes with the long term ill. This is apparently because he grew up in a hospital, both his parents being doctors, and so he was very used to seeing sick people. The scenes where Boonmee requires dialysis are therefore very easy and compassionate. The whole movie has a great gentleness as regards mise-en-scene. You just can't get enough of this stuff, simple human scenes where people cuddle and care for one another. I like also how darker things are dealt with elliptically, for example a water buffalo at the start which breaks free of it's tether, but realises after wandering in the forest that it has nowhere to go and no role to play out. Docile it returns with the farmer who has gone out looking for it. I take that as being allegorical, with the dark hulk representing a human spirit in anguish, though the straight up incarnation viewpoint is obviously affecting too. One thing Joe said in his Q&A after the film is that he's very keen on individual interpretations of the film, of which he has seen many types, so come prepared and be a creative watcher! Boonmee believes he is ill because he killed too many communists and also too many bugs on his farm (via the use of chemical pesticides). So the idea of karma runs through the movie as well. A spirit in the movie talks about heaven and says that it's overrated, and that nothing ever happens there. I found that quite funny (the movie is frequently amusing), because I've always thought of the view of heaven by the Abrahamic religions as quite problematic, that none of them can really make sense of it, of how to frame life once life is gone, once the struggle is over.

There's homage in the film to the movies that Apitchatpong grew up watching, and understanding that this is intentional may help to explain some rather odd special effects. I think as well is helps to have a knowledge of Thai current events and a little history, especially with the final scenes.

Quite incredibly special, like Katie, who this is for.

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.

I just finished watching this movie for the second time. I saw it twice because I was torn between making the decision of whether it was absolute garbage, or a work of genius. It's pretty much garbage. Sorry.

Picture this: you download some pictures of Thai forests and caves from National Geographic. You then download "Forest Sounds Vol. 2". You play a slide-show of these pictures whilst listening to the ominous and atmospheric sounds of the jungle. After about 10 minutes, you stop what you're doing and sit in a corner for an hour and a half. Then, you go back to your slide-show and sound effects for another 10 minutes. This is the movie in a nutshell.

There are some beautiful shots within the movie, and it's obvious there was some talent because they make a point to keep these still shots on the screen for as long as possible. The background sounds add a lot to the movie as well, but everything else was just plain bad. All of the acting was quiet and monotonous, and it didn't make it seem more natural at all.

The dialogue was terrible. Nothing made sense. As much as I would love to be even more pretentious about movies than I already am, and rave about how people don't understand this movie, there actually is really nothing to understand. All of the characters were the same. Any subtleties within them are just projections of the viewer filling in the blanks, and believe me, they are blank.

The majority of the movie was filler.

Garbage.

This is one of the finest films I have seen all year and I am certain that this film will stay with you for a long, long time.

Uncle Boonmee belongs to a category of films that harks back to the days of the invention of the moving image; when audience members were stunned in disbelief to see pictures and images in motion. The dawn of cinema came about as an experience and a work of art, much like a painting that people could experience and interpret how they liked. It is great to see film makers in todays commercial age still holding on to that vision and delivering the same.

The story, if there is one, is about the protagonist Boonmee who, close to the end of his current life, recollects how this one went by, with the help of ghosts and spirits of the forest where he lives. He has the ability to go back and forth into his past and future lives and relate his memories.

The movie, like other mood-pieces, can be fairly divisive with its audience. People who are not prepared for it will be left confounded whereas a small minority for whom the movie is made will leave the cinema stunned at the experience of it all. Therefore, this movie should rather be called an experience instead of a movie.

It is a little surprising that it won the Palm D'Or at Cannes, but not because it does not deserve it, but because it surprises me that the judges actually saw the beauty behind it. I say this one deserves the award more than the others did.

I've been watching a fair few art house movies recently, and I've found that they tend to fall into a love/hate camp; there's little middle ground in this genre. UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES is a meditative Thai exploration of Buddhism that wastes its early promise by falling into a pit of endless boredom.

The story begins promisingly enough, a tale of magic realism with some decidedly odd and unique offerings: the introduction of a primate from the jungle and an apparition at the dinner table set this up to be something really special. Unfortunately, after this point it feels like the writer gives up, and very little happens from this point in.

Viewers are treated to an interminable scene of characters wandering through a cave and a head-scratching climax which the writer doesn't bother attempting to explain. It's all very frustrating, with much head-scratching and dull interludes, long segments that tell obvious stories and a cast who give anything but impressive performances. The characters remain cold throughout, as indeed my heart remained cold to this film's intentions.

I really do wish I could like this. As it is, I think it has some dazzling sequences, and some really atmospheric and hypnotizing scenes. For the most part though, it didn't amount to much for me, and that's because I was just really bored by a lot of it. This really just comes down to whether one is hypnotized or bored by it, and unfortunately for me it was the latter. That doesn't mean that it's an awful film, it has way too much originality in what I saw to label it as such (and whether it has anything to really say is anyone's guess). Still, I wouldn't recommend this to most people, simply because it's so hard to get into. Not recommended.

I suppose the closest we ever get to any sort stone wall narrative form in this, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's quite audacious and quite breathtaking film, happens rather simplistically in the opening exchanges before being put out to pasture by a very deliberate, very obvious installation of Weerasethakul's then-on presence as a director. When we begin on a lone ox tied to a tree in the Thai jungle, the film establishes a 'character' occupying a world and living a lifestyle it seems disenchanted with in its moaning and yearning. Then, it breaks free – a fleeting shot of some nearby humans pausing for a rest the establishment of those whom not only imprison, but informing us of what's at stake if this bovine should fail. The ox runs off, trudging through the jungle as best it can attempting to escape its captors, although is out done by those men, before at last it is defeated and returned back to the makeshift camp.

On an elemental level, the film here adheres to a very basic; very primitive narrative. A protagonist is in a situation and has an opinion on their surroundings before instigating a catalyst; taking off on what is a crude example of a crucible journeying away from these surroundings before a resolution to proceedings sees things lead onto a new order, which happens to be the sad old one. As the episode comes to an end, Weerasethakul implements his own presence on proceedings; a rejection of such narratively imbued conventions in his providing us with a lingering shot on a beastly looking figure breaking the fourth wall and harbouring bright red eyes. The director has arrived, he identifies mythical story telling in its most basic of forms and will now proceed to entirely reject it via the arrival of this uncanny presence we did not at all expect to see.

His film, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Remember His Past Lives, is more a mediation on death and the afterlife with some funny moments; the odd dramatic one and a whole bunch of other stuff so rich in symbolism that one could watch it several times and either come up with a different meaning each occasion or just remain dumb-founded, than it is something depicting characters and telling stories operating with genres. The film's rejection of most of the above arrives under a number of different guises, ranging from the seemingly innocuous title of the company funding the project in the form of "Kick the Machine Productions" (a seemingly slight reference to the "Hollywood machine" most people refer to such a thing as), to the stark photographic image of the young boy clad in some very obvious American linked; American orientated Levi clothing throwing stones, and therefore turning away, Weerasethakul's vision or ideas or presence as was previously established when the intended target is revealed as that of the off-screen beastly red eyed being.

At a remote Thai fruit and honey plantation, the titular Boonmee (Saisaymar) is visited by his sister and a few other family members after a long car journey. Boonmee, despite the verbal hopes that he'll be perfectly fine, is on the way to death's door; this coming together a sweet enough way to spend time together as a family unit until tragedy strikes. From a simple enough premise, during which the standard Weerasethakul practises of drawn out takes during the car journey and unbroken dialogue sequences on anything at all make themselves known, the extraordinary and the unfathomable are implemented; most of what happens literally impossible in any sort of 'real' sense but played out with degrees of interest and relying solely on one's ability to foresee into the various depths of symbolism that are on show.

Whilst at the plantation, Boonmee's long since dead son shows up in a different guise and is revealed as the monstrous, red-eyed presence. His death was more broadly linked to that of going too far in trying figure out what it is he saw in a two dimensional image; the reading into, and getting to the bottom of, what he saw but could not understand having taken a photograph in some dense jungle of an odd animal in the trees, syncing up with our own task in having to read into the images Weerasethakul places on screen in front of us so as to demythify. On two other occasions on seemingly disconnected strands, a princess will speak of how ugly she perceives herself to be beside a lagoon housing a smooth-talking catfish; itself a non-dualism alluding to the ugly/beautiful transition the princess wishes to undertake – her venturing into the watery lagoon to change her characteristics a literal cleansing via the water as she removes various garments thus stripping herself of a prior 'type' in order to become another. This presence of water as a means of cleanliness to shift personas later transpires in a rundown apartment when a young monk has fled his monastery to go home, a shower with the emphasis on some blank white tiles during this process, as he comes out afterwards dressed casually and out of his monk clothing, another visual clue to a notion of purifying oneself of prior preconceptions and into something new.

At the film's core is a thoroughly enjoyable series of episodes, all of them wholly imbued with a sense of iconography and deeper meaning taking centre stage. They arrive with this well timed sense of theological comedy peppering proceedings, something which suggests Weerasethakul is a grounded enough man not unable to execute what it is he makes without a light hearted attitude, thus keeping him well away from any accusations of pomposity or pretentiousness. The film is a grandeur, cascading experience unlike most things that are currently out there without Weerasethakul's name already on it and a mediative experience; the likes of which ought really be tracked down if only for the varying insights and observing of a man with immense confidence in his craft.

This years Palme d'Or winner at the Cannes Film Festival, "Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives" is the story of a man who is dying, and as result recalls his past lives and is visited by ghosts and spirits.

There are ape spirit creatures who lives in the forest attracted by his sickness, he remembers being an ox and a princess, we watch a nurse drain some device the ailing Boonme wears fixed to his abdomen.

This was the first film I watched at 2010's AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles, and it was a start that was not followed easily. The film is strange but the words which feel most appropriate to the film are "gentle" and "mysterious".

Boonme's final days are spent with his sister and a nurse and their various supernatural guests. They eat dinner, watch films, look at photo albums, life unfolds but with an awareness of a mysterious shift coming. As death approaches, past lives and those human, animal, or other appear ever-shifting and inter connected, foreign but also familiar, like relatives returned after a long absence."Uncle Boonme" is the final part of a multi-platform project featuring art installations and short films called "The Primitive Installation", about Nabua, Thailand a region heavily occupied by the Thai army from the 60's to the 80's. "Uncle Boonme" believes his karma is the result of the part he played in the violence of the past.Director Apichatpong Weerasethakul ("Joe" for short) has created a landscape of shadowy jungles, intimate bedroom lighting, a haunting, funny, dreamy, and wise, rhythmic lamentation about modern life, it's "primitive" counter points, death, change, spirit-monkeys and all that good stuff.

Uncle Boonme is a fantasy as epic as Souleymane Cisse's "Yeelen", one luminous to look at and visually wander through, with several of "Tropical Malady's"' most hallucinatory moments, appearing strong early in it's opening movements and closing out on notes as elliptical as those of "Syndromes And A Century", and then there's the final scene compressed into a wonderful kind of epilogue involving a monk, that's the most audacious, fascinating, and best of it's sort since Wes Anderson's "Hotel Chevalier"."

Transformations and contrasts between the ancient and the modern flow into one another from electronic bug zappers to sex with talking cat- fish, primordial caves to karaoke bars. Dual and multiple-roles and states within a single whole, are a recurring theme in the film, so multiple meanings and readings being generated is little surprise. But though these thoughts rise up haunting us after viewing, the images of movement through Nabua's phantom jungles and Boonme's warm goodbyes are what we are left feeling and reeling with.

All modern worlds are built on ancient ones, all new things have within them older forms. "Uncle Boonme" is more informed by Buddhist notions of reincarnation, the idiosyncratic personality of it's creator and the psycho-geography of it's location, more than normal concerns about dramatic and character arc. In simpler words...an old man who is dying can recall his past lives.

The film is a matter of perception as complex and post- modernist/globalized as any experimental narrative in avant-garde-dom or as mystical and "primitive" as any ancient Sutra, based on the cultural inclinations and presuppositions you bring to the film. In any event, is to Joe's continued success and cinemas continued fortune that he so playfully and beautifully can challenge and delight these hybrid perceptions of ours as he does.

Uncle Boonmee is nearing the end of his life and has decided to spend his final days with loved ones at a remote farm near the Laotian border. Here he is joined by his late wife and the son who when missing years before and is no longer human. He then contemplates his life and whether his actions in previous lives have led to his current suffering.

This is a very different film. There isn't a plot to speak of; it is more a succession of scenes. It must be said that the setting is beautiful; a heavily forested area with an almost timeless feel to it. Instead of the usual background music we only have the natural sounds of the jungle. Unfortunately it is also glacially slow at times. I really wanted to enjoy this and early on as we were introduced to Boonmee and his family I thought I wasn't going to be disappointed; but later I found my mind wandering and was a little unsure about just what was happening. After watching I learnt that this was the final segment of an 'art project'; perhaps the problem was that I'd no knowledge of what was in the previous parts or perhaps it was just my lack of knowledge of Thai cinema outside the action genres. Overall I'm not sure I'd recommend this unless you really want to see something different.

With its slow, pensive pace, maybe director Apichatpong Weerasethakul is telling us to slow down to life's natural rhythms to see the beauty and magic in the world, things often hidden to us because we're scurrying around in our busy/short lives or have our attention glued to a television or some other screen. A man is dying of kidney failure in Thailand and we see six scenes, a few of which seem like visions, and all of which are tinged with the surreal. Perhaps the connective thread is in the film's title, and he's simply recalling past lives as he lays dying in this one. Perhaps the film is saying that we are only conscious of a small fraction of the universe, that we are connected to everything around us and everything that has ever lived, that every living thing has a spirit and we reincarnate into a myriad possible forms, monkey ghosts and copulating fish included. It's all slyly ambiguous, but the sense of the spiritual is pervasive, like a poem that's hard to penetrate. Perhaps most telling is the moment he says "What's wrong with my eyes? They are open but I can't see. Or are my eyes closed?" Open your eyes, the film seems to be saying.

Viewed at the Festival du Film, Cannes 2010 I saw this film with two friends at the evening, red carpet screening in Cannes. Lucky us, right? Well, no. The walk-outs began about six minutes in and continued unabated. My two companions both fell asleep! I managed to stay awake, although I tried otherwise, and when A and B both woke some 45 minutes later, we also joined the line for the exit. I realise a film is always a personal experience, but there is absolutely no story on show here, no character establishment or development. The camera lingers and busks to the point that you are mentally screaming "CUT!! CUT!!"! Whole interminable scenes do nothing to drive a non-existent narrative forwards. Visually, it often looks like it was shot on mini-DV and mastered through an unwashed milk bottle. As for the characters, especially Uncle Boonmee, do we get to know him? What do you think? Do we even care? What do you think again? The best thing about this film is, I kid you not, an electric fly swatter! Now that's something I want! It won the Palme D'Or, of course.

Its pretty nice being brocken into two seperate pieces. someone sit$ reclined with their legs hanging out the car window. Every minute, second, or day, it's like that. If it's not possible to enjoy something nice, like the noise of a train passing through from miles away, then just do something mindless that you have to do, like brush your teeth while its happening. a person with a belt strapped around their eye sight isnt shown in this movie.

After so many Golden Palm winners that blew my mind and enriched my personal knowledge of foreign cinema, here's a cinematic oddity that comes directly from Thailand and which I wish I could enjoy a little more than I did.

"Uncle Boonmee or the Man Who Could Recall his Past Lives" isn't for any taste and I wish I was able to have the very distinctive taste that can allow such a movie to be appreciated at fair value. Maybe I was in the wrong mood, maybe my mind was too demanding for something meaningful to happen that I failed to grasp the poetry of the film. But even that word 'poetry' loses its weight when it comes to movies, I take it as the kind of extra ingredient that can make a difference but not the recipe. For all his great intentions and now I have to copy-paste his name the director Apichatpong Weerasethakul took that word too much for granted and served us a film that can raise an interest on Thailand's spirituality, the underworld where ghosts and living creatures can coexist and interact, but there's a fine line between raising an interest and making something passably interesting.

Interesting the film is in fact, to the degree that you're able to plug your mind in a world that challenges the notion of time, space and human perceptions and totally forget that movies are meant to tell a specific story. Uncle Boonmee is no hero or protagonist, he's a man with renal failure, at the verge of death and who, during some trip in a remote farm, makes various encounters, including one of his deceased wife and another of his dead son who can be described as a man in a black monkey suit with red eyes pointing like Hal 9000. I accepted these unfamiliar visions and let myself transported by their uniqueness, wondering where they were going to lead us to.

I know expecting a meaning can be a foolish way to embrace such a film, but then again, if I feel myself incapable to insert any logic even in what seems to be a streak of beautiful vignettes, my mind might be wandering like some soul caught between life and death, and supposing this was the intended effect, I didn't feel any satisfied or at the very least emotionally gratified when the movie concluded, either it had something beautiful to convey and I failed to get it, either I was in such a hurry to be impressed that I saw the film without seeing it. That said, to my defense, the film doesn't have to offer the kind of dazzling imagery I could use to plead its cause, it's not "2001" or "The Tree of Life", movies with redeeming cinematic qualities for the puzzled minds.

There are so many long moments where we follow people exploring a cave, people watching TV, and even a monk taking a shower, that I was wondering what kind of artistic licenses can command a director to stretch time to the limit of boredom, here it is, the ugly world is out. I was bored... I was so bored that I even followed the advice of another IMDb user and rewatched the film by fast-forwarding it, even at 1.5 speed, the effect was all the same... the shell was still empty and I couldn't find any pearl. I get the symbolism or I guess I got it... I was puzzled and slightly fascinated by the interlude with the princess and her reflection, and the intercourse with the catfish, it seemed to suggest a sort of symbiosis between the human world and Mother Nature and that might be the closest thing to a common thread.

But then again, I can only speculate about the intentions of the narrator and the way he inserted the history of Thailand and the communist past allowed me to give him a benefit of the doubt and blame my failure to enjoy the film on a lack of interest in the initial subject. That's all I can say about "Uncle Boonmee", for such an imaginative and surely creative film, I'm afraid it didn't inspire me that much.... and the Wikipedia page doesn't even help.