Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)

[Alan Smithee]

"Would Pauly in Goodfellas feel regret and loss? I don't think so. This isn't subtlety, it's a sanitised version of reality. Worse, the character seems to exist simply so that AW can make a film in Isaan without having to actually portray any working class characters in any depth."

Well Pauly isn't a real person. Do real mobsters ever feel regret on their death bed? I don't know but I would bet they do. Especially since many of them are Catholic.

I think that it's ok for AW to try to broach this subject through what I'm being told by you is a bourgeois character considering that's the world he comes from as you've so earnestly hammered home.

[Nothing]

Mmm. Except that the primitive project was supposed to address the history of Isaan, which is pretty hard to do when you expunge the underclass from the narrative. Even harder if you're not even honest about the characters you do choose to portray. The underlying issue not being whether Bonmee would feel guilt - although I find this unlikely for a successful criminal in a country like Thailand, where the acqusition of wealth by any and all means is generally perceived to be a virtuous pursuit - but the fact that AW doesn't even portray Boonmee as a criminal at all, because he wants to make the character as likable as possible - because he's pandering to a western audience, in essence. Scenes of Boonmee knee-capping peasants would likely stem all those flowery compliments about blissfulness and 'adding to the sum of human happiness', not to mention the awards success, whilst any degree of overt political engagement would result in reviews like this (dare not criticise a partner in America's war on terror/communism/[fill in the blank]!).

[joshua]

Except that the primitive project was supposed to address the history of Isaan, which is pretty hard to do when you expunge the underclass from the narrative.

Uh, not really boss.

The Primitive project is about re-imagining this little terrain of Thailand called Nabua, a place where memories and ideologies are extinct. Primitive will feature the teenage male descendants of the farmer communists. Nabua will be the town of men, freed from the widow ghost's empire. These teens will fabricate memories and build a dreamscape in the field and in the jungle.

Primitive is about reincarnation and transformation. It's a reincarnation of presence (and absence). It's also a reincarnation of cinema as a means of transportation as it was in the time of Melies: the 'motion picture' carries us from our own world. Primitive is a meditation on those voyages in fabulous vehicles that bring about the transformation of people and of light.'

Since I don't have the limited edition, more-lefty-than-thou world decoder ring you ordered out of the back of Dissent, I'm going to have to fall back on the old, bourgeois method of approaching AW's artistic intent by going back to the stated arguments he makes in his actual written intent. That's not to say that your arguments from authority on Thai cultural/political history (your own authority, of course) and your straw man piñata parties haven't been impressive since the Syndrome and a Century days. They have been. The problem I have though, is that I haven't found a single argument of yours that jibes with either the content of the movies being discussed or with the character of the rather chatty and well interviewed man who made them. Your quote above is a good example of how your interpretation of intent is really at odds with the AW's stated intent. How exactly was the Primitive project "supposed to address the history of Isaan" when AW clearly spells out that it was a "re-imagining [of] this little terrain of Thailand called Nabua, a place where memories and ideologies are extinct" to which he adds the implication that his purpose was to also mine the ideas of "reincarnation and transformation" for their poetic meanings? To me it seems that AW started with the premise that the cultural history of Isaan was brutally snuffed out and that he was going to focus on the time and space that was left after this annihilation. So contrary to history being addressed, from this point of view it is being precluded. What the project is actually addressing is not the history then, but the rebirth and reclamation of regional identity through imagination and cultural atavism in the positive sense, similar in artistic spirit to the AACM motto, "Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future." Sure, signifiers show up in Boonmee and Letter to that point to the history that you feel is of ultimate importance, but it is to inform a completely other kind of thematic concern and if you ignore that other concern, your argument holds little water.

I also feel I need to at least provide an alternative (read: opposite) take on your "subconscious racism" charge. From what I saw in the film, there were Lao migrants and Isaan people represented and they all seemed to be treated as more engaged and "modern" than the backward bumpkins that were Boonmee and his sister-in-law. The Lao doctor is presented as a knowledgeable and standup guy and serves double duty as (contrary to what has been said in this thread) the stand-in for science that, when paired with the superstitious Boonmee clan, creates the kind of pleasurable, simultaneous dichotomies that AW likes so much (I think the "devout" Buddhist angle is being played up way too hard in this thread and that the science and superstition aspects are not a compare/contrast game but rather should be seen as two ideas occupying the same space). There are also the migrant workers, one of whom is teaching Boonmee a little French. These guys seem to me to be with-it, of-the-moment type characters that, although they are working at the bottom end of the pay scale, are not in a dissimilar situation as the characters unmoored by globalism in an Assayas' film. Boonmee and his sister on the other hand, hold on to outmoded ideas (the sister-in-law doesn't like race mixing) or are relics of a bygone era (Boonmee). Unless you hold on to the idea that this film is Buddhist propaganda of some sort and that, by de facto, Boonmee's death is presented as a saint's passing, then I don't see how it's possible to see Boonmee as a wholly sympathetic character.

Please don't take this as a hostile personal attack Nothing. I didn't intend the post that way. The couple of dig lines are just for laughs and intended in the spirit of animated bar banter after a couple of shots. I like reading your posts and continue to come back to them to measure up my own opinion on AW's work to see if I'm missing something.

As I stated before, the over-emphasis on the Buddhist readings of Uncle Boonmee in this thread is getting a little creepy and verging on back-handed exoticism. If you want to give him shit because you don't like the film or praise him because you do, talk about how he totally ripped-off Marker for the dream sequence or notice how similar his themes are to some of the ones found is Resnais' films when you replace the word "ghost" with "memory." You folks know your films and he is a formalist with a recognizable pedigree.

Here are a couple of quotes to show how deep and doctrinaire Weerasethakul is about his Buddhist beliefs:

SCOPE: You mentioned that you meditate. But are you religious in the sense of going to the temple?

APICHATPONG: No way!

SCOPE: Is it just in terms of religion as personal belief, with you trying to make contact to the spiritual realm…

APICHATPONG: I think it means more to me in a psychological or scientific way. Thai people, sometimes we pray before we go to bed. For me the praying is to help me sleep, so this kind of thing is more of a chemical balance to adjust your body. I don’t go to temple—I think of praying as fun, a rest for the mind. I just read a book about this. I forget the author, but he said that we take a bath every day to clean our bodies, but we never shower our minds. Meditation is one of the ways to clean our mind as well.

JB: The notion of parallel worlds is inherent in your work, with dual story strands and different incarnations of certain characters. Does this stem from your own Buddhist beliefs?

AW: It’s more to do with legends; the world I grew up in was full of legends. I wouldn’t say I believe in them, but I am fascinated by them in a romantic way and also in a scientific way. Legend links together the circular relationship between humans, animals and plants. I went to China a few years ago, and I was told about a plant that, in one season, will turn into an animal and then, in another season, will turn back into a plant, and this can apply to our own span of being. I read texts about reincarnation and the mind, how the mind can travel, and I think there is a scientific link with the impermanence of things; they are moving all the time and they have particles inside that are not solid.

[matrixschmatrix]

The underlying issue not being whether Bonmee would feel guilt - although I find this unlikely for a successful criminal in a country like Thailand, where the acqusition of wealth by any and all means is generally perceived to be a virtuous pursuit

Seriously? Your argument at this point is "any character in Thailand with any meaningful wealth is automatically going to be a gangster, because there's no other way to succeed there. Also, I don't think any Thai people feel bad for doing evil things, because the Thai people are such fanatical capitalists that they think immorality in service of profit is virtuous." At best, you're angry at the movie for not being a different movie about a subject that interests you- which isn't much of a criticism- and at worst, you are being reductive to the point of racism.

[Brian C]

...a country like Thailand, where the acqusition of wealth by any and all means is generally perceived to be a virtuous pursuit

This really is a Great Moments in Passive Voice nominee here. "Perceived" by whom?

[Lemmy Caution]

Have to say that I don't think I've been to a more corrupt country than Thailand (and I live in China).

Gambling is very big there.
When I arrived the big story in the news was the arrest of a criminal gang of police who were abducting Taiwanese businessmen on gambling holidays there.
They would siphon off their bank accounts for a few days and frequently kill them. It involved around two dozen police and they kidnapped a similar number of Taiwanese over a two or three year period. The advice was that if the police tried to pick you up, refuse to get into a police car, insist on walking to the nearest police station, and try to attract a crowd of witnesses.

Then there's assorted prostitution, including smuggling of underage girls (children) from Burma/Myanmar. And of course, hard drugs, heroin and various opiates.
Gem smuggling (rubies, sapphires) from Burma and Cambodia.
Hard wood smuggling -- you should see the beautiful teak houses right next to the Burmese border. Illegal migrant workers. Etc.

Really a wide-ranging and diversified illegal economy.
And that's not even touching on the political and gov't corruption of bribes and kickbacks and whatnot.

[Nothing]

Matrix: To rise up from an under-priviledged background is almost impossible without some recourse to criminality, yes. You have to understood how systemic the corruption is. You also have to understand that Christian morality isn't a worldwide absolute. eg. In the north and north-east, the richest man in the village is automatically the most important - a concept that pre-dates capitalist theory. That man would not traditonally be regarded as 'evil' (a Christian concept) by himself or others, regardless of how his wealth was acquired. I realise this reality may not sit well with wishy-washy liberals (ie. the consumers for fantasy exoticism like Boonmee) who like to believe that third-world cultures are more progressive than their own.

On to Joshua's far more interesting post...

Tbh, joshua, I thought I was doing the man a favour by engaging with the work directly, rather than the liner notes, which are incredibly pretentious and contradictory in places. But if you wish...

The Primitive project is about re-imagining this little terrain of Thailand called Nabua

This is a flowery version of what I said: he is making a project about Nabua because of its historical significance, using it as a microcosmic reflection of the wider region (the word "little" is used with irony / self-deprication here).

a place where memories and ideologies are extinct

A nonsensical statement, frankly, contradicted by AW himself later in the notes when he recounts an old ideological song sung to him by one of the local teenagers.

Yes, it is true that the oppression of the 60s and 70s is not as widely remembered as one might expect. It may be a cliche, but history is written by the victors, and these events are not taught in schools. But hey - try asking an American about the genocide their country perpetuated in Indochina during the same period, or ask a Brit about war crimes in Kenya during the Mau Mau Uprising, and you're just as likely to draw blank looks. Nevertheless, ideology remains alive and present in Isaan - or did I just imagine the UDD movement and their virtual take-over of the capital last year?

To me it seems that AW started with the premise that the cultural history of Isaan was brutally snuffed out and that he was going to focus on the time and space that was left after this annihilation. So contrary to history being addressed, from this point of view it is being precluded.

If we're talking about communism, many of the leaders of the UDD movement (incl. members of Thaksin's cabinet before the 2006 coup) are 'former' communists. Nothing has been annihlated - and their opponents remain the same. Of course, the cultural history of Isaan goes back much further, and I think it presumptuous of AW to assume that his own culture has or will ever succeed in wiping it out (coming back to this incredulous and patronising notion of the character Tong speaking Thai with his elders).

there were Lao migrants and Isaan people represented and they all seemed to be treated as more engaged and "modern" than the backward bumpkins that were Boonmee and his sister-in-law.

Boonmee, his sister-in-law and Tong are Isaan people too - and they are the only characters explored in any depth. I really don't think we saw enough of the other characters to determine whether or not they are engaged or modern. Incidentally, the Laotian speaking French is an (probably intentional) echo of Tong speaking Thai - the oppressed taking pride in speaking the language of their oppressor.

Primitive is about reincarnation and transformation.... a meditation on those voyages in fabulous vehicles that bring about the transformation of people and of light.'

Aside from, once again, being a wonderfully pretentious turn of phrase (pandering cunningly to the expectations of that all-important liberal beard-stroking fanbase), there's a huge contradiction at work here. How can AW, on the one hand, write about 'the pilar of religion' as a tool of state propaganda, used to suppress memory and dissenting ideology, and, on the other, seek to make a film that reaffirms Buddhist doctrine? Call this a "pleasurable, simultaneous dichotomy" if you will; I would suggest he is simply too personally conflicted to even begin conveying his point of view successfully to others. It is, afterall, hard to think of a 'master' in any other field getting away with a comment like this:

I read texts about reincarnation and the mind, how the mind can travel, and I think there is a scientific link with the impermanence of things; they are moving all the time and they have particles inside that are not solid.

:-"

If you want to give him shit because you don't like the film or praise him because you do, talk about how he totally ripped-off Marker for the dream sequence or notice how similar his themes are to some of the ones found is Resnais' films when you replace the word "ghost" with "memory." You folks know your films and he is a formalist with a recognizable pedigree.

Tbh, these things don't bother me.So he was inspired by Marker and Resnais... Everyone has their influences. The film is fairly successful on a formal level, I've already acknowledged this.

[knives]

The film is fairly successful on a formal level, I've already acknowledged this.

That's giving a fairer shake than I would. He takes his influences and copies them with an extreme laziness. The movie is horribly put together by some one who either doesn't have the talent or patience to do a feature proper. Like I said with my first comments, he shows the same formal ability of Ray Dennis Steckler.

[matrixschmatrix]

Matrix: To rise up from an under-priviledged background is almost impossible without some recourse to criminality, yes. You have to understood how systemic the corruption is. You also have to understand that Christian morality isn't a worldwide absolute. eg. In the north and north-east, the richest man in the village is automatically the most important - a concept that pre-dates capitalist theory. That man would not traditonally be regarded as 'evil' (a Christian concept) by himself or others, regardless of how his wealth was acquired. I realise this reality may not sit well with wishy-washy liberals (ie. the consumers for fantasy exoticism like Boonmee) who like to believe that third-world cultures are more progressive than their own.

I'm sorry, but this is insane Orientalism, reducing the people of Thailand to a childlike state of amorality. Regardless of what importance is placed on wealth or power- as though wealth didn't confer power and standing throughout the world- morality, whatever it comprises and whatever terms are used to describe it, is a universal concept. Obviously definitions of sin or specific infractions against morality vary from culture to culture, but you are reducing a people to ciphers incapable of moral judgement.

[knives]

I don't see Nothing as doing that. He is just suggesting that the Thai culture is different than western cultures and that the moral mindsets are born out of different perimeters. Now I don't know anyone from Thailand nor have I been there, but my mother is Vietnamese and spent her first twenty years there and if her mindset, and to an extent my own because of her, is anything like the Thai culture than Nothing isn't too off in saying that status within the culture is based off of wealth and success and (assuming you don't harm your family) if you can gain status discreetly than go about whatever you want. There is a very strict and complex morality at play, but it's hard to frame it in a way that westerners would understand.

[matrixschmatrix]

I don't see Nothing as doing that. He is just suggesting that the Thai culture is different than western cultures and that the moral mindsets are born out of different perimeters. Now I don't know anyone from Thailand nor have I been there, but my mother is Vietnamese and spent her first twenty years there and if her mindset, and to an extent my own because of her, is anything like the Thai culture than Nothing isn't too off in saying that status within the culture is based off of wealth and success and (assuming you don't harm your family) if you can gain status discreetly than go about whatever you want. There is a very strict and complex morality at play, but it's hard to frame it in a way that westerners would understand.

Well obviously I'm not trying to suggest that all the moralities of the world operate in the same way, and I'm not trying to suggest that status and morality automatically go together- presumably, throughout the world, it is possible to gain status and be a very well respected person while doing utterly unconscionable things (Henry Kissinger comes to mind.) My point is just that it's reductive and dehumanizing to assume that a Thai person would feel no guilt- or regret, if guilt is too specifically Christian a concept- for anything they had done, evidently on the assumption that Thai society recognizes no morality outside of power.

A significant portion of Nothing's argument seems to be that a person in the position in which Boonmee is depicted cannot be the serene and gentle character that Boonmee appears to be, that Boonmee must automatically be a murderer and a thief, and that moreover he cannot possibly be someone who views his murder and theft as anything worthy of regret or guilt. That seems, to me, to be an exceedingly untenable position.

[knives]

I don't think Nothing is saying that regret is not possible in the culture or even over the things Boonmee must have done to acquire his status. I don't even see that as a concern in his argument and that it was a mistake for him to even bring it up, but rather that someone like Boonmee would not be the sort of person he is portrayed as and that he is given a sensitive portrayal when he would have been a bad person to simplify things to get into the place he is in. The closest comparison I can give from a western view would be an American plantation owner. Even the most positive sort would be like Thomas Jefferson. I think Nothing is accusing the film of being dishonest in ignoring that cruelty. It's not so much that he wouldn't be able to feel regret over it even though certain cultural dissonances would make that unlikely as much as the film doesn't even go over why he might feel guilt if he were to. The film, under Nothing's theory, builds Boonmee as a saintly person when his status makes it so that that would be untrue.

[matrixschmatrix]

Hmm, that's a reasonable point, and I do think the main thing I took issue with was somewhat tangential to that criticism. Certainly, Boonmee's status and the means by which he achieved it is something the movie is not interested in, and I'm not disagreeing with your analogy about how wealth is achieved/maintained. I do think that even if a saintly Boonmee is as much a mythological character as the sort of kindly Gilded Age millionaires who pop up in Dickens, his existence is part of the premise of the movie and dismissing the movie on that basis is fairly tiresome.

[knives]

I find the exploration of that thought interesting, but I do agree that there are many aspects to the film that are worse off that something so tangential is worth nothing more than a light mention.

[Nothing]

Matrix, first of all you need to stop thinking of Thailand as a homogonous whole. As I have tried to explain, there are many different regions and different cultures, and the country's borders have shifted wildly over the centuries. Until 1939, it was known as Siam, perhaps a more accurate name, referring as it does to the Siamese empire, the Chinese descendents who constitute the ruling classes. The people of the north-east, by contrast, are indigenous Lao tribespeople whose land has been colonised by the Siamese - hence my comparison to Northern ireland. it is the poorest region of the country by far, populated by subsistence farmers whose children, over the last century, have flocked to factories and low-paying service sector jobs, if not to prostitution and organised crime. When considering the latter, one must also know that before the Thaksin administration introduced the 30-baht healthcare program 10 years ago, most people in Isaan didn't even have access to basic medicine (or food for that matter, if they didn't work their hearts out for it). In addition then to this poverty, to the poorest standard of education in South East Asia outside Burma and a subsequently crushing lack of opportunity, the region has to contend with institutional corruption, a blurring of the lines between political movements and organised crime (again not entirely dissimilar to what happened in Northern Ireland). You're talking about an area that has traditionally operated on a system of 'patronage', where the instruments of local government and law enforcement are bought and sold and where, since the advent of 'democracy', votes have been traditionally bought in bulk. Imagine how difficult it is for a law-abiding African American to succeed in the LA Projects, times that by ten and you're just beginning to get the idea... By contrast, of course, a pair of rich Siamese doctors and their filmmaker offspring can live their lives quite comfortably within the letter of the law, because their wealth and status has already been secured by the social heirarchy (which is not to say that white collar corruption doesn't exist).*

Arriving at the topic of morality, I am of course not suggesting that morality doesn't exist for these people, but that their traditional (pre-20th century) moral concepts and priorities differ quite drastically from the Christian concepts to which you are accustomed. High on the list, for example, is duty to family and, in particular, the unpayable debt owed to ones parents. For example, millions of young people from Isaan enter into sex work because they consider the wealth of their family a higher moral priority than their own dignity or health (let alone the dignity or health of non-family members...) - and their parents will take the money, without guilt, often with a sense of entitlement. If those young people make it into old age and have children of their own they will expect the same... This extremeity of deference extends beyond ones elders to the social heirarchy itself, and any kind of rebellion - even independence of thought - is traditionally frowned upon, tying into Buddhist concepts about the acceptance of suffering, the acceptance of one's place on the karmic chain (whoever said that Buddhism was the benign religion?)

This does not, of course, mean that these traditional values are universally held. The 20th century has seen an influx of European ideas, most notably the influence of communism, which found much traction in Isaan in the 50s-70s (not to mention throughout the whole of South-East Asia) and indeed the social programs of the now-exiled Thaksin government - which have led to the re-galvanizing of political opinion across the Isaan region and the present state of political unrest in Thailand - were devised by former communists in ministerial positions. The question then to you, as a multiculturalist, is that if Thai people can discover and see the value of European ideas like universal healthcare and poverty reduction, should we not also take pride in these concepts? Should we not express a little more belief in the principals by which we expect our own lives to be governed, rather than indulging in beatific notions of cultural relativity up until the moment that we actually experience a regressive culture for ourselves (eg. fundamentalist Islam)? Is it not in fact the case that all cultures are a combination of influences - stemming, ultimately, from the same small part of Africa - and that some ideas, through a process of evolution, are more progressive than others? Just as Wahhabism is a relatively modern, extreme and xenophobic twist on Islam that few would countenance, so traditional Lao values have been shaped by the Siamese in Isaan over the past few centuries to suit their imperial ambitions - with frankly questionable results - and it is notable that Laotians tend to view the supplicatory money-worship of their Isaan cousins with amused condescension...

In the Primitive Project then, I think we're also witnessing this clash between a 'traditional' and 'foreign' outlook, between the complacency of AW's privileged upbringing and peer group (most nauseatingly expressed in Syndromes & a Century), and the European influence (he has European producers, after all...) that, five features down the line, is leading him to ask more searching questions about the history - and the future - of his country. It's a tension that has yet to be resolved but, like those other real-world tensions, one that cannot remain in a state of flux forever.

* Nb. I certainly don't wish to pretend that western capitalism is pearly white - indeed the ability of bankers and market traders to drag national populations into recession, whist continuing to pay themselves huge bonuses from government bailouts, is something I would consider to be a massive form of legalised corruption. And don't even get me started on Henry Kissinger...

[drakula]

Can I just say that everybody's comments (especially those by Nothing and Joshua) are incredibly valuable because they shed light on things that aren't commonly said about the film. Too many people focus on how poetic it is (probably the reason it won the Palme d'Or); few have addressed its problematic politics. Personally, I find Apichatpong's predilection to poetry, in spite of the class/race relations he raises but then chooses to glide over, really disturbing- it is almost as if to make a 'beautiful' picture, he first has to make a perfunctory nod to the problems of his nation (like the superficially 'Buddhist'/superstitious beliefs in the film).

[matrixschmatrix]

By contrast, of course, a pair of rich Siamese doctors and their filmmaker offspring can live their lives quite comfortably within the letter of the law, because their wealth and status has already been secured by the social heirarchy (which is not to say that white collar corruption doesn't exist).*

Yes, but that also means that those comfortable within a position of wealth may not necessarily be the brutal bastards who can actually achieve wealth- it's true that by depicting someone who received blood money without the blood or the ruthlessness behind it the film is eliding details of the economic reality, but I would argue that is in many ways equally true for any depiction of the wealthy- especially given how much of the wealth of the first world derives from the exploitation of the third. I was going to compare it to attacking the King's Speech for not depicting the brutal underpinnings of monarchy, but as I recall, you actually did that. In both cases, examining the underpinnings would itself be valuable, but that would be a different work. [/quote]

Arriving at the topic of morality, I am of course not suggesting that morality doesn't exist for these people, but that their traditional (pre-20th century) moral concepts and priorities differ quite drastically from the Christian concepts to which you are accustomed. High on the list, for example, is duty to family and, in particular, the unpayable debt owed to ones parents. For example, millions of young people from Isaan enter into sex work because they consider the wealth of their family a higher moral priority than their own dignity or health (let alone the dignity or health of non-family members...) - and their parents will take the money, without guilt, often with a sense of entitlement. If those young people make it into old age and have children of their own they will expect the same... This extremeity of deference extends beyond ones elders to the social heirarchy itself, and any kind of rebellion - even independence of thought - is traditionally frowned upon, tying into Buddhist concepts about the acceptance of suffering, the acceptance of one's place on the karmic chain (whoever said that Buddhism was the benign religion?)

So what exactly is your complaint against Boonmee? That he exists within this mode of morality, but is not shown in a way that would make him obviously repugnant to Westerners?

The question then to you, as a multiculturalist, is that if Thai people can discover and see the value of European ideas like universal healthcare and poverty reduction, should we not also take pride in these concepts?

I do not agree that these are somehow inherently European concepts! Especially considering how much of the poverty and ill health endemic to various places in Asia is directly attributable to European actions- though I cannot speak to Thailand, Vietnam, India, and China itself to some degree are obvious examples. Are you arguing that extreme, nearly inescapable poverty is the natural state for Thailand, and that only Western philosophies can rescue them from it?

Should we not express a little more belief in the principals by which we expect our own lives to be governed, rather than indulging in beatific notions of cultural relativity up until the moment that we actually experience a regressive culture for ourselves (eg. fundamentalist Islam)?

I live in America, friend, and repressive fundamentalist religion is far from foreign here. Obviously, though, extreme right-wing Christianity does not control the government here in the same way that extreme right-wing Islam does in Saudi- is that legitimately attributable to culture, or just an accident of history? I'm certainly not going to pretend that I don't prefer democracy, even corrupt and uneven democracy, to theocracy of any kind. I'm also obviously not in a position to be proud of exporting universal healthcare, since it's an idea we seem to be unable to adopt for ourselves.

Is it not in fact the case that all cultures are a combination of influences - stemming, ultimately, from the same small part of Africa - and that some ideas, through a process of evolution, are more progressive than others? Just as Wahhabism is a relatively modern, extreme and xenophobic twist on Islam that few would countenance, so traditional Lao values have been shaped by the Siamese in Isaan over the past few centuries to suit their imperial ambitions - with frankly questionable results - and it is notable that Laotians tend to view the supplicatory money-worship of their Isaan cousins with amused condescension...

I'm not arguing that some ideas aren't more progressive than others at all. However, it gets dangerously close to the White Man's Burden outlook to start thinking that one culture is more progressive than another, and that perhaps the more progressive culture ought to export their brilliant ideas like universal healthcare and poverty reduction. You are arguing that Isaan was essentially colonized and then socialized to hold values best suited to the ruling classes- is that itself not a remarkably European course of action?

[Nothing]

I do not agree that these are somehow inherently European concepts!

I mean simply that all communist and socialist policy can be traced back to Marx, Engels, Saint-Simon. Of course, to expand the wider point, these men were ultimately descended from Africans, so the concepts are not 'inherently' European, no. They're certainly not Thai. And of course plenty of, um, far less palatable ideas have been dreamt up by Europeans too

So what exactly is your complaint against Boonmee? That he exists within this mode of morality, but is not shown in a way that would make him obviously repugnant to Westerners?

That AW is sweetening the character to an unconvincing degree, blunting the socio-political varacity of the work to make it more palatable for his western audience.

I mean yes, it's probably true that I am criticising the film for not being what I want it to be - or, more precisely, what I think a film on this subject should be. But I don't think it true that a choice had to be made between poetry on one hand and politics and history on the other. Jancso and Angelopoulos would be the most obvious models - imagine if AW had made a film exploring the nature of memory and history in Isaan/Nabua in the mode of The Travelling Players! Now that would be a film I would get down on my knees and bow to...

[matrixschmatrix]

Hmm. At this point, I think any further argument would be nitpicking, irrelevant to the movie, or both- I'm satisfied to let things stand, and while I don't think either of us has convinced the other of much of anything, I feel like this has been largely a constructive argument.

[Fierias]

Nabua...Nubia...they're all the same, right? #-o

[joshua]

Tbh, joshua, I thought I was doing the man a favour by engaging with the work directly, rather than the liner notes, which are incredibly pretentious and contradictory in places. But if you wish...

Definitely. I too feel that when reading his comments, one should have a pair of hip-high waders at the ready. I brought in the text because I think it puts AW into proper context when combined with his films. He is someone who values generalities and "feel" over most other concerns. He is not very analytical when it comes to considering the details (and the possible implications regarding) that spring from his intuitive "process." From my point of view, it is not unusual in the arts to find this kind of mindset and approach. The point where the line is crossed for me has not yet been approached by AW because, I think, he is at worst a political naif. As has been stated in the thread earlier by you and others, he is not working to intentionally slight anybody, and for me this is the point where a sliding scale comes in and I'm (so far) willing to give him slack. My outlook here probably comes from my interest in the modern skeptic movement (the Bertrand Russell, Martin Gardner, Joe Nickell model, not the asshole Libertarian strain) and I react to benign "true believers" differently than I do hucksters who push a harmful racket. In that light, my initial contention that there was a dissonance between AW's films/words and the spirit of your argument comes from, what seems to me, the language in your posts that strongly makes the implication of intent.

The Primitive project is about re-imagining this little terrain of Thailand called Nabua

This is a flowery version of what I said: he is making a project about Nabua because of its historical significance, using it as a microcosmic reflection of the wider region (the word "little" is used with irony / self-deprication here).

Yes, but how hard is the correlation in Boonmee between Nabua and the Isaan region or even Thailand in total? If AW is making an all-inclusive and sweeping analogy, I'd say that he is massively overreaching. If on the other hand he is "re-imagining" Nabua to make some general points about his stated interests of lost history, atavism and transformative possibility, then it would be our error as a viewer to pin-down all of the fictional elements to real world counterparts. You could almost consider this the other side of the "taking Boonmee as authentic" coin. If AW's Nabua is akin to Plato's Atlantis (a fabrication used to make a generalized or abstract point) then we go searching for it in the real world at our own intellectual peril.

a place where memories and ideologies are extinct

A nonsensical statement, frankly, contradicted by AW himself later in the notes when he recounts an old ideological song sung to him by one of the local teenagers.

Maybe a contradiction is happening here in the strict sense, but in a general sense it could be argued that AW is being in his own way consistent. If he is using extinct in a loose, cultural kind of way then I see his meaning being that even though fragments of the political history and ideology still remain, they do not hold cultural sway anymore. Much like if I said classic country music is extinct in the states. Does I mean that there are literally no practitioners of the music left? Not at all, just go anywhere out west and you can easily see that this is not true. Does classic country mean anything in our modern music culture? Nope, it's as dead as Cash.

To me it seems that AW started with the premise that the cultural history of Isaan was brutally snuffed out and that he was going to focus on the time and space that was left after this annihilation. So contrary to history being addressed, from this point of view it is being precluded.

If we're talking about communism, many of the leaders of the UDD movement (incl. members of Thaksin's cabinet before the 2006 coup) are 'former' communists. Nothing has been annihlated - and their opponents remain the same.

See here!?! I made the mistake I point out above. I conflated Nabua with the region of Isaan and got appropriately schooled. You are absolutely correct.

Of course, the cultural history of Isaan goes back much further, and I think it presumptuous of AW to assume that his own culture has or will ever succeed in wiping it out

Here's that "language implying intent" again.

(coming back to this incredulous and patronising notion of the character Tong speaking Thai with his elders).

Could this not also be seen as cinematic short hand for, "Tong is one of the younger generation types that moved to the city and lost touch with his country roots?" Couldn't he just be this movie's Holly Golightly?

there were Lao migrants and Isaan people represented and they all seemed to be treated as more engaged and "modern" than the backward bumpkins that were Boonmee and his sister-in-law.

Boonmee, his sister-in-law and Tong are Isaan people too - and they are the only characters explored in any depth. I really don't think we saw enough of the other characters to determine whether or not they are engaged or modern. Incidentally, the Laotian speaking French is an (probably intentional) echo of Tong speaking Thai - the oppressed taking pride in speaking the language of their oppressor.

Again, I think there is another reading possible. Boonmee is a man trapped in his backwards cultural conventions. He takes his family out to show them "his" workers in the same manner a farmer might show off his new tractor or a cattle rancher his impressively sized heard. Being the old nationalist that he is, he talks up the French lessons because he enjoys the quaint exoticism of the language's foreignness. I'm not forwarding this idea to claim it as the "correct" reading but rather to point out that that I don't think that your "oppressed taking pride in speaking the language of their oppressor" idea is the final word. As stated before, we see the Boonmee character in very different ways. I don't see Boonmee as a sainted character who get's his glorious curtain call. I see him as a character who realizes at the onset of death that he's failed at this iteration of life and passes with a conflated sense of self awareness and selfish regret. Does he learn anything for the next time around? The water buffalo scene at the beginning might be a hint that he doesn't.

(pandering cunningly to the expectations of that all-important liberal beard-stroking fanbase)

Man! Again with the "language implying intent" thing. AW must be one of the most devious and disingenuous artists ever. Al Capp would be proud.

How can AW, on the one hand, write about 'the pilar of religion' as a tool of state propaganda, used to suppress memory and dissenting ideology, and, on the other, seek to make a film that reaffirms Buddhist doctrine? Call this a "pleasurable, simultaneous dichotomy" if you will; I would suggest he is simply too personally conflicted to even begin conveying his point of view successfully to others.

The last part I agree with completely. AW is a classic mix-and-matcher when it comes to his beliefs, taking whatever he can from wherever to fit his personal needs. I think it would be hard for him to systematize in a logical manner how it all fits together. I do not believe the film "reaffirms Buddhist doctrine" though as it is coming from said personalized worldview. Would it be mixing metaphors to call him a Christmas Buddhist?

It is, afterall, hard to think of a 'master' in any other field getting away with a comment like this:

I read texts about reincarnation and the mind, how the mind can travel, and I think there is a scientific link with the impermanence of things; they are moving all the time and they have particles inside that are not solid.

I can think of one. Off of the top of my head, I'd say Tarkovsky. I don't know if he had ever spoken at length about his belief in visiting aliens or his absolute belief in the supernatural abilities of Nina Kalugina, but he was definitely "new-agey" in his metaphysical views. He was another mix-and-match master whose lofty ideas would fray under scrutiny.

In the Primitive Project then, I think we're also witnessing this clash between a 'traditional' and 'foreign' outlook, between the complacency of AW's privileged upbringing and peer group (most nauseatingly expressed in Syndromes & a Century), and the European influence (he has European producers, after all...) that, five features down the line, is leading him to ask more searching questions about the history - and the future - of his country. It's a tension that has yet to be resolved but, like those other real-world tensions, one that cannot remain in a state of flux forever.

I absolutely concur with your thoughts here.*

I mean yes, it's probably true that I am criticising the film for not being what I want it to be - or, more precisely, what I think a film on this subject should be. But I don't think it true that a choice had to be made between poetry on one hand and politics and history on the other.

This is true, but I'd guess there are more instances than not in the history of film that fall more prominently on one side or the other. I have to say, I've enjoyed watching the people here articulate how they fall along the divide or reject it all together.

The film is fairly successful on a formal level, I've already acknowledged this.

That's giving a fairer shake than I would. He takes his influences and copies them with an extreme laziness. The movie is horribly put together by some one who either doesn't have the talent or patience to do a feature proper. Like I said with my first comments, he shows the same formal ability of Ray Dennis Steckler.

Would you mind elaborating on this a little more, I'm interested in what struck you as amateurish. Thanks.


*Well, not so much the Syndromes aside nor the "doin' it for the money" jab but I'll leave those alone.

[manicsounds]

"What's a Nubian?"

That's a silly mistake, along with it being credited to "ames Quandt" as the editor.
Who did the proofreading at New Wave?

[knives]

The film is fairly successful on a formal level, I've already acknowledged this.

That's giving a fairer shake than I would. He takes his influences and copies them with an extreme laziness. The movie is horribly put together by some one who either doesn't have the talent or patience to do a feature proper. Like I said with my first comments, he shows the same formal ability of Ray Dennis Steckler.

Would you mind elaborating on this a little more, I'm interested in what struck you as amateurish. Thanks.

I'm sure I said it better earlier when I still cared about the movie, but the most obvious element for that lack of formal ability is that near final montage that at best is trying to copy the coda for Taste of Cherry, but just comes off as padding and disinterest in form. His feeble attempts at story too don't work and only when he gives up on everything that doesn't interest him does he seem to have anything close to competence (I did enjoy the cave and catfish sequences).

[monk0nuggets]

So, does anyone know what is going on with the Strand release? Amazon says its shipping within 1-3 weeks, despite it being released this week.

[Matt]

Supply chain issues? DVD Planet seems to have the DVD in stock (and cheaper, too).