Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)

[swo17]

a review

Watching this recently, I felt basically the same as you, if you replace all of your qualitative adjectives with their exact opposites. I can't really dispute your points because they seem to be just your reactions to things that I also saw on the screen but I suppose I processed them in a completely different way, as I didn't see any of the embarrassment or contempt for characters that you describe. I can't explain all of what I saw or how certain segments fit in to the overall narrative, but the visuals and sound design really took me somewhere wonderful and new and have stayed with me since, and I look forward to seeing this film again sometime to try to unravel some of its mysteries.

Near the very end after what is a very nicely done cave sequence the film for no reason at all becomes a sequel to Tropical Malady with this section comprised entirely of stills and on set photos set to a voiceover. I've already forgotten who and what about this mumbling was for, something having to do with the future and past, so I won't give my left over feelings on that.

I'd need to watch this segment (and the whole film) again to be sure, but it struck me that this passage might be key to understanding much of the rest of the film, so I wouldn't write it off quite so easily.

[knives]

I wouldn't say he has contempt for the main five per say, but he definitely has it for the Laotian. It's more of a disgust at humaness that I sense. It's a bit like he finds that humans are inherently ugly creatures until they turn into something different. It's his enforcement of spirituality that I am sickened by. It's definitely a religious movie, but a religion I want no part in.

Near the very end after what is a very nicely done cave sequence the film for no reason at all becomes a sequel to Tropical Malady with this section comprised entirely of stills and on set photos set to a voiceover. I've already forgotten who and what about this mumbling was for, something having to do with the future and past, so I won't give my left over feelings on that.

I'd need to watch this segment (and the whole film) again to be sure, but it struck me that this passage might be key to understanding much of the rest of the film, so I wouldn't write it off quite so easily.

I wasn't trying to write it off. It's obviously important to him considering how powerfully it stands out from the previous passages and how it relates to his previous work. I just find his way of presenting it needlessly incoherent and sloppy. I don't have any real feelings on the VO, because I basically forgot it as it was happening which is never a good sign. What really gets my blood boiling is the way he went about the stills which I hope I outlined well enough as to why I found it so poorly made.

[zedz]

The reason you forget the voiceover as it's happening is surely the very deliberate dissociation between it and the stills - they're telling two completely different (and maybe unrelated, but as swo notes, this film demands more work) narratives. I don't think it's possible to process both narration and visuals at once on a single viewing, and that might be a clue about the other deliberate disjunctions in the film, such as the two-contradictory-things-at-once of the final sequence.

And I'm pretty sure the contempt for characters is something you're reading into the film. As in Tropical Malady, it seems to me that the humans and their behaviour are an intrinsic part of the mysteries he's celebrating. I'm amazed you can discern any authorial 'attitude' (beyond curiosity and wonderment) in the film on a first pass. It seems way too cryptic for that from where I sit.

[knives]

While I see him as trying to make an enigma I don't think he actually succeeded at being particularly cryptic. Maybe it's my own lack of imagination, but I found the film, even the last sequence, surprisingly straight forward. I had just assumed that the final section was some time in the future, though Swo's hallucination suggestion is far more fun. The only sequence that I thinks manages to be cryptic is the still sequence. As for that, and I realize this is terribly dismissive, but I don't care how many things AW was trying to do if he can't succeed in presenting any of them well. It just comes off (and I did rewatch this sequence yesterday) as a lazy attempt to say things that he doesn't even seem to have a grasp on in an arty way. Rather than being artistic though it just comes off as incoherent for incoherence sake. That's a condescension I don't need.
As for I character I don't see any celebration. There seems to be none of this curiosity and definitely no wonderment you speak of. There doesn't seem to be any attempt I can see to present humans, but he's too afraid to go into the full metaphors or archetypes that he seems to be craving. Every portrayal reeks of cowardice or in the case of the none spiritual disgust.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Poster by Chris Ware.

[Guido]

Poster by Chris Ware

This feels a little busy. I'm always in favor of design being complex, but I'm not seeing any unifying concept guiding the piece here. Just a lot of inconsequential, superfluous elements that don't quite cohere. That being said, it'll probably end up on my wall.

[yipyop]

This feels a little busy. I'm always in favor of design being complex, but I'm not seeing any unifying concept guiding the piece here. Just a lot of inconsequential, superfluous elements that don't quite cohere. That being said, it'll probably end up on my wall.

That's funny...as a long-time fan of Chris Ware (as well as his myriad vintage design influences) I find it to be possibly his most "straight-forward" piece yet, both in terms of concept and visual flow. It makes me eager to check out the film, which I was ready to write off as pretentious dreck based on many reviews. The poster conveys a sense of magic and intensity that I've only heard a few critics articulate so far.

[Murdoch]

It reminds me of some indie band's gig poster.

[matrixschmatrix]

It looks a lot like a Hendrix concert poster circa Axis: Bold as Love to me. On the other hand, I think that's a good thing.

I'm excited to hear a specific theatrical release date for this- hopefully it will make a run somewhere outside of New York at some point, though.

[domino harvey]

Hysterical comment in that link:

Intriguing design, but not at all "easy to read" for a movie poster--if I saw this on a sidewalk or subway platform, I'd have to move in for a closer inspection and linger to get the name of it, and it gives me NO idea why the film might be of interest to me. Far from "punchy."

The idea of anyone coming in off the street for a Weerasethakul film like it was the Tourist or something is just... beautiful

[accatone]

They always mix up "graphic design" with "advertising".

[MichaelB]

The idea of anyone coming in off the street for a Weerasethakul film like it was the Tourist or something is just... beautiful

I still have fond memories of spotting Patrick Keiller's London nestling among the tourist-trap videos at the Piccadilly Circus branch of HMV. God knows what unsuspecting punters would have made of it.

[Guido]

Forgive me mods if this has been posted elsewhere, but New Wave has mentioned in a recent email exchange that Uncle Boonmee will be getting the Blu treatment in North America as well.

Films we like, the Canadian distributor, will also be doing a Blu-ray of their own.

As for an approximate release date, nothing was mentioned.

[zedz]

The idea of anyone coming in off the street for a Weerasethakul film like it was the Tourist or something is just... beautiful

I still have fond memories of spotting Patrick Keiller's London nestling among the tourist-trap videos at the Piccadilly Circus branch of HMV. God knows what unsuspecting punters would have made of it.

I first saw that film at a film festival screening surrounded by angry old ladies who clearly hadn't read the programme note.

[matrixschmatrix]

Interesting interview with Weerasethakul. The fantasy project he mentions, Utopia, sounds like it would be amazing.

[Mr. Ned]

Interesting interview with Weerasethakul. The fantasy project he mentions, Utopia, sounds like it would be amazing.

Holy Crap, you're right; Utopia sounds like an incredible idea.

[swo17]

Amazon shows a release date of July 12 for the Strand DVD in the U.S. No such luck for a Blu-ray release, and only a DVD is mentioned on Strand's website.

[James]

Amazon shows a release date of July 12 for the Strand DVD in the U.S. No such luck for a Blu-ray release, and only a DVD is mentioned on Strand's website.

I'm glad I saw this in theaters; I doubt the low-contrast, almost naturally lit night scenes will translate well at all on smaller televisions (although it will be watchable, of course... this would likely be close to the best film of 2010 even if all it had were the gorillas at the beginning, the shot of the field with the solar panels, or the cave sequence).

[swo17]

I would add that it's paramount to watch this on a good surround sound system. There are certain scenes where half of the hypnotic quality comes from being enveloped by the, um, surrounding sounds of the locale depicted on screen, like being lassoed into the underbelly of the mother ship.

[knives]

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) Okay, so I'm cheating here since there is a thread for this, but it's filled with too much fawning for a dissenting voice to be welcomed. So I will simply say, for the sake of anyone else who just doesn't get it either, that this was probably the closest I've ever come to walking out of a movie in the theater. I hated it on a basic level and my arguments against it aren't kind to its fans, so I will leave it at just being one of those things where I'm over here and everyone else is over there.

I was a dissenting voice that didn't get ripped apart and I'm sure you'd have something better to say.

[James]

my arguments against it aren't kind to its fans

I'm sure you'd have something better to say.

Doubt it.

[swo17]

I don't see why this discussion should need to get ugly. I for one have little idea what I saw when I watched this--I just know that I really enjoyed it. I'd appreciate any interpretation, whether favorable to the film or not.

[James]

I don't see why this discussion should need to get ugly. I for one have little idea what I saw when I watched this--I just know that I really enjoyed it. I'd appreciate any interpretation, whether favorable to the film or not.

Me too, but I don't want this to turn into another Enter the Void discussion, where everyone whines about that movies' fans.

[lady wakasa]

I saw this last Friday (finally!). At the concession stand I also found a book of essays called, rather appropriately, Apichatpong Weerasethakul (ed. James Quandt).* I'm not done yet, and it was actually published when Uncle Boonmee was still more of an installation than a movie, but it's going far in explaining where AW is coming from with most of his movies.

So far, Uncle Boonmee looks to be an amalgamation of themes from several of AW earlier movies - and I'm a big fan of magic realism, so I was already looking for an equivalent of that.

I'd like to see the last twenty minutes again - I think it's key to everything else, in the same way that the last 20-30 minutes of No Country for Old Men is the real telling of the story - but I think the local screenings ended today.

Does a movie have to be universally accessible to be good? I don't think so - I don't think the onus is on completely on the filmmaker to present something that *anyone* could watch and totally absorb - but I have friends who'd likely disagree with that. I do think that without some rudimentary knowledge of Thai culture / society and history, it might be very difficult to understand AW's movies.

...Or I could be completely wrong.

(* ...and the poster. I got a copy of the poster. %^D)

[Nothing]

I do think that without some rudimentary knowledge of Thai culture / society and history, it might be very difficult to understand AW's movies.

True - and, yet, with such knowledge, his movies are very difficult to like! \:D/ *

*caveat emptor: I've yet to see Uncle Boonmee.