Meditative ‘Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives’

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HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 3.5/5.0
Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” opens with one of its most striking, memorable, and essential images. A buffalo stands in a forest at what appears to be dusk, as we can see him only in shadow. He moves slowly around a tree, almost ghostly, before escaping and running through a field and into a forest. As the film unfolds after this unusual prologue, one can trace its themes back to the power of that image — as the natural and spiritual worlds seem to intertwine in the picture of a majestic creature.

The very non-linear and untraditional “Uncle Boonmee” was the surprising winner of the Palme D’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and played last year at the Chicago International Film Festival before opening at the Music Box this weekend. It is certainly not a film for everyone. It is a piece that almost defies conventional interpretation like a foreign fable that doesn’t completely make sense through translation. But as hard as it can be to crack the surface of this meditative piece, it is equally mesmerizing. It gets to the point where one doesn’t care that they can’t decipher the plot in a traditional way but merely takes in the ideas and emotions not unlike remembering a dream.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Photo credit: Strand Releasing

Essentially, “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” is about the days before dying and bridging the spiritual and natural worlds. It is a film with long scenes without dialogue and little drama. A man named Boonmee runs a farm and tries to deal with kidney disease. It is not clear that the disease will kill him until an unusual evening when his wife appears at the dinner table. His wife has been dead for almost two decades and has come to report that “Heaven is over-rated. There’s nothing there.

It’s only moments after this casual appearance of an apparition that Boonmee’s son walks up the stairs looking not unlike Chewbacca, covered in black hair with bright red eyes. His son has been missing for years after trying to track down a “monkey ghost,” mating with one, and joining the natural world. It is the arrival of the spiritual on one side of the table and the natural on the other that makes it clear that Boonmee is about to take a journey. And when the film takes a break in the middle for the parable of a princess who mates with a catfish under a waterfall, it becomes even more clear that this is not your average death drama.

Even that phrase — “death drama” — doesn’t seem quite right for this film. There’s something defiantly unusual about it and I’m sure that aspect of it will turn off many viewers. Personally, I found parts of it too somber and tedious for the film’s good. The film goes back and forth for this viewer, alternating between moments that feel pretentious and ones that feel genuine. It’s truly a fine line with a film this unusual. Are critics merely fawning over it because it’s different? How does one assess its accomplishments with so little to compare it to?

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Photo credit: Strand Releasing

Ultimately, I admire “Uncle Boonmee” for some of the memorable imagery and daring subject matter overall. It’s often a cinematic minefield when a filmmaker attempts to take on something as deeply spiritual as the story at the center of this film. It is a piece about lives intertwined with history, nature, and the great beyond and suggests that, as death approaches, those elements become even more inseparable. For the dramatic attempt alone, I respect the movie and would recommend it, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it made me a little drowsy. I can totally respect and agree with what the preacher says on Sunday morning, but I can still get sleepy as he’s saying it, and I can’t separate a bit of boredom from my response to this film.

In many ways, what I love about cinema can be found this weekend in Chicago. On one hand, you have films as mainstream as “Scre4m” and “Rio.” And, on the other hand, documentaries (“The Elephant in the Living Room,” “Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone”) and award-winning foreign films (“In a Better World,” “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives”). It sounds simplistic to say that there’s something for everyone — on many weekends of the year, there’s not — but this weekend is an unusual reminder of the breadth of modern cinema and the stories that can be told with a camera, a cast, and an editing bay. You won’t see any other stories like “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.”

“Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” stars Thanapat Saisaymar, Jenjira Pongpas, Sakda Kaewbuadee, Natthakarn Aphaiwonk, and Geerasak Kulhong. It was written and directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. It is not rated and opens in Chicago on April 15th, 2011 at the Music Box Theatre.

HollywoodChicago.com content director Brian Tallerico

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

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