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I hope the Palme win didn't turn me into a contrarian, but I'll weigh in with people for whom this didn't work. I really loved Syndromes. Tropical Malady worked mostly for me in the first half, but as the more spiritual mythology took over, I began to lose interest. Still, I retained interest in the film because of how the film begged the viewer to interpret how the folklore related to the first half.

Uncle Boonmee didn't give me the grounding that I got from the other two AW films I had seen. My biggest gripe is with the portrayal of Boonmee's dead wife. She appears before the whole family, and nobody makes a big deal about it, not even the nonbeliever (the Laotian). They ask her on-the-nose questions, such as "Did you hear our prayers?" Of course, she did. And "Did you get the trinkets we left you at the temple?" Well, she felt them. Wait, what?

And this is the hugely problematic part of the film. So much of Uncle Boonmee is constructed around the imminent demise of Uncle Boonmee, but he doesn't react in any human way. When facing the vast nonexistence that is death, not even the staunchest believers have the kind of objective proof of afterlife/reincarnation/whatever that AW provides for Boonmee. So the dear uncle just smiles and waits to pass on. And there's no empathic entryway to this viewpoint. Nobody on Earth experiences death like this. I can't imagine this illuminating anything about the human condition. Maybe the space monkey condition. The film itself is inhuman.

The dialogue, then, is presented as so inane as to only raise more questions about these beliefs. Such as when Boonmee reassures his dead bride that he will find her after he dies. How long will it be? It took her all the way until his death to show up. And why did it take her that long? So many logical loopholes and roundabouts exist in these supposed objectivities that I'd have to shut off a larger part of my brain than if I were watching Transformers.

In regards to this film, and several others, I'm finding that I have a Wacky Shit Principle. The WSP works much like the uncanny valley. The wackier the shit, the more believable it is. Space monkeys? Sure. I can accept that. Why? I'm not so sure. Maybe because I think that nobody in their right mind actually believes in space monkeys, so that makes it easier for me to shut down my defenses and just take in the Wacky Shit.

But when a woman is communing through the afterlife to her dying husband, and he reacts as if dying is the most pleasant thing since his village discovered irrigation, then my sirens go off. I think that the director may actually believe this, and that makes me reject what's being shown. And if he doesn't believe in it, then I see no artistic reason to present death, the most existential and feared concept in human existence, as such a non-factor in a man's life who faces it imminently.

For me, the parts that worked the most in the film were the stills sequence, which played to the Buddhist concept of "past lives" as well as the conversational way of describing Boonmee's past in the military as being part of his "past life." Some of the images were striking, drawing my mind to seeing war as a sequence of stills a la Abu Ghraib (a leashed space monkey?).

Similarly, the stoicism and unreality of the catfish scene played to common cultural touchstones (Narcissus), themes (vanity, water/youth, etc.), and was so high in its Wacky Shit Quotient, that I wasn't offended by its treatment of potentially human subject matters. I was taken in by that scene as a standalone sequence.

Perhaps in the past, AW couched his spiritual underpinnings well enough as to make something like Syndromes, which I loved, accessible even to someone like me. But this film treats the afterlife and spirituality in such a direct and on-the-nose matter, both in how it's portrayed in the frame and treated in the dialogue. The title could've been a red flag if I hadn't enjoyed his previous film as much as I did. I felt like watching The Death of Mr. Lazarescu just to wash the taste out of my mouth.

I'm still working through my understanding of the film, but I'm going to respond to Grand Illusion's post as a walk-through of why this worked for me.

Grand Illusion wrote:So much of Uncle Boonmee is constructed around the imminent demise of Uncle Boonmee, but he doesn't react in any human way. When facing the vast nonexistence that is death, not even the staunchest believers have the kind of objective proof of afterlife/reincarnation/whatever that AW provides for Boonmee. So the dear uncle just smiles and waits to pass on. And there's no empathic entryway to this viewpoint. Nobody on Earth experiences death like this. I can't imagine this illuminating anything about the human condition. Maybe the space monkey condition. The film itself is inhuman.

Okay, but I see it as Uncle Boonmee is in the true final stage of his life. He’s beyond the fear / anger / disbelief stages, and he’s accepted that he’s going to die. His sister and nephew have come to basically be there for the end. He’s putting his affairs in order, doing the final things he’d like to seen done. He’s beyond worrying about himself (which I’m thinking is the ideal Buddhist viewpoint to take). He may no longer have the energy to fight the inevitable.

Remember: he’s trying to get his sister to take over the farm (and even promises to come back to help her – which also plays into the duality between the old, spiritual ways and the new, modern ways). The Laotian worker has already thought about what he’s going to do next (although he does say the socially polite thing when Uncle Boonmee says he’s dying). And the ghosts show up pretty much at the end.

Boonmee, as an apparently active Buddhist, doesn’t see death as vast nonexistence. There’s nothing in the movie that indicates he's having a crisis about his faith (which he may have gone through in an earlier stage) and is looking for tangible proof. I think it's a mistake to interpret Boonmee’s situation as indicating *to him* that his beliefs must suddenly be wrong – especially since he represents traditional Thailand. He can be frightened about the whole thing (and his wife is there to help him with that), but there is no inherent reason for him to suddenly disbelieve. And I say this as someone who's pretty much areligious.

If you look at She's aunt's death in Yes - the aunt doesn't worry that God's screwed her over somehow; she's concerned about her niece's life and wants her death to be a catalyst for change in She. That makes her very real to me.

If it were Jen’s deathbed we were witnessing – the sister from “sophisticated” Bangkok, who’s largely put away the traditions, who’s given up on avoiding stepping on bugs - I could see what you’re saying. But not Boonmee. It’s one of the dualities in the film: tradition vs modernity. And I think it's key to the last 20 minutes.

One aside: the backstory to Boonmee’s wife’s post-death journey also seems unimportant (more like a Macguffin, even), especially since she says that ghosts are drawn to people, rather than locations, and that time becomes disconnected after death. She’s there to aid his passage; he didn’t really need her before that and likely won't need her afterwards. She came at the right time.

In regards to this film, and several others, I'm finding that I have a Wacky Shit Principle. The WSP works much like the uncanny valley. The wackier the shit, the more believable it is. Space monkeys? Sure. I can accept that. Why? I'm not so sure. Maybe because I think that nobody in their right mind actually believes in space monkeys, so that makes it easier for me to shut down my defenses and just take in the Wacky Shit.

As for the WSP (LOL, like the terminology) – one interpretation could be to take the movie on a purely symbolic level (although I don’t see that as AW’s intent, and it’s not the way I’m leaning). Does he really see the ghosts? Or is this the equivalent of seeing your life pass before your eyes, recounting all the events (which is what the movie’s doing anyway)? It could be taken as Boonmee’s own private movie a la All That Jazz, which his relatives get little glimpses of.

What I’ve been able to find out about the monkey spirits: am fairly sure they represent Communist guerrillas. Young men heard rumors about them roaming the hills, went looking for them… and found them, disappearing in the process (I’ve heard someone make the guerrilla / gorilla comparison, though I'm not convinced that’s true). It’s even possible that Boonmee might have killed his own son during his military days, on either the literal or figurative level (the timing's a bit off, but it's not impossible). He's revisiting the period; it’s not random shit.

Some of the images were striking, drawing my mind to seeing war as a sequence of stills a la Abu Ghraib (a leashed space monkey?).

That actually reinforces gorillas = guerrillas. I missed that earlier.

Similarly, the stoicism and unreality of the catfish scene played to common cultural touchstones (Narcissus), themes (vanity, water/youth, etc.), and was so high in its Wacky Shit Quotient, that I wasn't offended by its treatment of potentially human subject matters. I was taken in by that scene as a standalone sequence.

Catfish scene: still trying to get information on it, but catfish are supposedly sacred symbols in Thailand – so you have a princess (who, because of her disfigurement - and, arguably, her social status - can't have a fulfilling relationship with a human male) and a sacred fish (who doesn't care about her face, and is arguably either her social equal or superior). Both the princess and the catfish are looking to fulfill earthly urges… which sets up another reincarnation round. (Either the princess or the fish could be Boonmee; to me, that’s up in the air.)

The setup and visuals are supposed to emulate the tv schlock that AW watched growing up - which I liken to putting a fight scene from the Batman series (*KAPOW!* *OOOMPHF!*) into someone’s treatise on life. Actually, I'd enjoy seeing that.

I felt like watching The Death of Mr. Lazarescu just to wash the taste out of my mouth.

I liked Mr. Lazarescu. A lot. But I liked this as well, and I think death in the two movies plays two very different roles.

I’m hoping to see this again next week, and I’m still working on the book of essays (plus I found A Letter to Uncle Boonmee, and Phantoms of Nabua, the two installation pieces that became Uncle Boonmee, online). And I didn’t like Tropical Malody. But I found a lot more to hook onto in this film.

lady wakasa wrote:What I’ve been able to find out about the monkey spirits: am fairly sure they represent Communist guerrillas. Young men heard rumors about them roaming the hills, went looking for them… and found them, disappearing in the process (I’ve heard someone make the guerrilla / gorilla comparison, though I'm not convinced that’s true). It’s even possible that Boonmee might have killed his own son during his military days, on either the literal or figurative level (the timing's a bit off, but it's not impossible). He's revisiting the period; it’s not random shit.

I'll cop to having not read anything about the discussed symbolism, so there's definitely stuff I missed. I actually didn't link the discussion with the son's "disappearance" as a monkey to my later interpretation of Boonmee's "gorilla" warfare. That's a good catch, and certainly a link that I think is worth investigating.

I guess that's also why I find the space monkeys to be so much more resonant than the appearance of the wife, who, down to her dialogue, is much less interesting subtextually and also, I believe, undermines Boonmee's possible conflict. Boonmee may not need a crisis of faith, but he does appear to have some sort of crisis of conscience. He even explains how his physical ailment is one of karma. Then there's a revealing character moment when he mentions killing Communists and killing bugs in a single statement, as if they weigh equally when he goes find out his final karmic score.

If "art cinema" is supposed to show how the tiniest conflicts are as important as the big Hollywood conflicts, like saving the world, then AW removes even the tiniest bit of humanity from this crisis on conscience. To me, there's just a sense of inevitability about reincarnation and the tautological spirituality that none of it matters. He'll be reborn or not; maybe he'll just chill and go find his old love who happens to be preserved perfectly.

I suppose you are right in that there are people past the anger / fear / disbelief phase, and these people are significantly more subdued and accepting of their inevitable fate. But nothing of Boonmee (either in performance or narrative) speaks to a sense of melancholy, unhappiness, resentment, or any other emotion one might feel when they are going to cease to exist as a human being.

And I think, diegetically, this is correct. If I had 100% definitive proof of an afterlife, I'd be all smiles too. Maybe it's just me, but neither myself nor anyone I know reacts to our own mortality this way, and I'll bet that part of it is that we don't have the objective "ghosts appearing before us" cushion that AW provides to Uncle Boonmee. Even the end-of-life crisis of conscience is dispelled rather quickly. At the very least, it doesn't seem to deter Boonmee's own views (and the narrative's objectivity) that the guy will have a pleasant afterlife.

That's why the film seems unrelatable to me. Not that it doesn't have parts that are worth analyzing, but that the main thrust of the central character seems to flow opposite to everything that I know to be human. That we are, above all, the only creatures on Earth to be cognizant of our own mortality, and this fact changes us, for better or worse.

Grand Illusion wrote:And I think, diegetically, this is correct. If I had 100% definitive proof of an afterlife, I'd be all smiles too. Maybe it's just me, but neither myself nor anyone I know reacts to our own mortality this way, and I'll bet that part of it is that we don't have the objective "ghosts appearing before us" cushion that AW provides to Uncle Boonmee. Even the end-of-life crisis of conscience is dispelled rather quickly. At the very least, it doesn't seem to deter Boonmee's own views (and the narrative's objectivity) that the guy will have a pleasant afterlife.

That's why the film seems unrelatable to me. Not that it doesn't have parts that are worth analyzing, but that the main thrust of the central character seems to flow opposite to everything that I know to be human. That we are, above all, the only creatures on Earth to be cognizant of our own mortality, and this fact changes us, for better or worse.

Well I'm in your boat too, philosophically, but there are literally billions of people in the world who don't see death as the end and even consider it something to look forward to (because they do have, in their eyes, 100% definitive proof of the afterlife, and they've got a personal invitation to the party). And from Boonmee's Buddhist perspective, death really is nothing to get all that upset about. So unless he's a really bad Buddhist, anxiety or doubt or anger (or worry about whether the next life is going to be 'pleasant' or not) wouldn't be at all appropriate.

AW's blithe acceptance of Buddhist doctrine is, however, a problem, a demonstration of his conformist instinct, his inability to dig deeper in search of genuine truth.

You know, in a couple of weeks I may have actually seen this!

Nothing - when you've dug your way to genuine truth, send me a PM.

Guido wrote:Nothing - when you've dug your way to genuine truth, send me a PM.

lolz will do.

The digital fix reviews New Wave's blu-ray of Uncle Boonmee Recalls His Past Lives. People who pre-ordered look pretty damn safe.

The Blu-ray, according to comments on the Digital Fix review and in the forum for Blu-ray.com, is 1080i 50i 25fps. Which means despite it being region free, it won't play on US region locked players.


It also means the image isn't as good quality as it could be.

Antichrist was shot at 25fps and got a 1080i 25fps release from Artificial Eye - the progressive Criterion is noticeably superior, but Uncle Boonmee was shot on 16mm film, and I can't see this being a similar situation to Fassbinder shooting the same speed for Berlin Alexanderplatz as that was for TV. So why did this happen?

New Wave Films put together a great bunch of special features, and this could have been a disk seen in several end of the year best disk lists... but now it's no different than the UK Dogtooth.

So my recommendation is to AVOID, until we can see if the Strand or Canadian Blu have the same special features - both will be 24p anyway.

I can't figure out why this is interlaced... Why would Weerasethakul send them an interlaced master of this recent film, when like I say, the Region A releases no doubt be correct... So why would New Wave films deliberately turn a progressive master interlaced?

Will 1080i 50i 25fps play on a region-hackable Momitsu/Insignia/etc.?

Also, I was under the impression that Strand is only releasing this on DVD. And is a Canadian release scheduled, or is that just speculation on your part?

It's more whether your TV will accept the signal

swo17 wrote:Will 1080i 50i 25fps play on a region-hackable Momitsu/Insignia/etc.?

Also, I was under the impression that Strand is only releasing this on DVD. And is a Canadian release scheduled, or is that just speculation on your part?

According to an email from New Wave in the Blu-ray.com forum, Strand are likely releasing a Blu-ray later in the year. According to an email my friend received after complaining he'd ordered the disk thinking as it's region free it would work on US locked players he got this reply:

New Wave Films wrote:We had never intended to make a release for the US as we don’t own the rights. They are with Strand Releasing, who, I understand, are still planning to do a blu-ray.
The fact it was region free was just to save some costs in authoring rather than some idea of selling it to North American buyers. When we were asked if it was region free by 6 or 7 seven people, we were unaware of this incompatibility issue between interlaced (1080i) which is fine for Europe, and progressive (1080p), which I now realise is what North American players demand. Had we known this then, we would have qualified what we said with this information.

As for the Canadian release I was again going from what New Wave themselves mentioned

Guido wrote: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.

EDIT: New Wave Films to me:

New Wave Films wrote:This is our first Blu-ray release, and was only possible financially because we could combine the authoring costs of DVD and Blu-ray by working from 25fps material, hence it was 1080i. We have now learnt something, but as we have to rely on other people for the fine technical details, I am still slightly puzzled as to what happens with films that are 25fps in the first place, like the next two that we probably will do on Blu-ray for the UK, How I Ended this Summer and Film Socialisme. I still haven’t got a satisfactory answer yet.

I pointed them in the direction of our own MoC The World thread where Nick had a similar dilemma.

I might have to double-dip on the Strand if the subs aren't the size of billboards (the only glaring irritant with New Wave's disc after a quick glance through; otherwise it seems fine and plays fine on my Momitsu). Otherwise, based on the Films We Like disc of Colossal Youth, uh I mean The World, included in that Cinema Scope subscription and Strand's less than sterling track record (though bless them for picking films up; better than nobody doing it), I'm not going to assume they'll automatically be better than the New Wave.

Momitsu/Insignia players convert PAL to NTSC and 1080 50 to 1080 60 so you can hook it up to any television. Just specify the output.

The digital fix review gives it a very high video score, and I ordered it anyway. I'd rather have this than the upcoming Strand...

Finally got around to this on blu-ray (25i, wtf?...)

I began with the short film, A Letter to Uncle Boonmee, which is surprisingly good. The unseen presence at the core of the film could equally symbolise the historical injustices carried out against the indigenous population of the north-east ('Isaan'), and, specifically, against residents of Nabua in 1965, as it could a spiritual or ancestral presence and, as such, the short gains a resonance and relevance previously unseen in AW's work. As is often the case, however, he pushes the experimentation too far, to the detriment of the overall clarity of the piece. We are given, for example, an unnecessary and rather ugly shot of a lens being changed, and a somewhat pretentious, navel-gazing voice over, where an interview with the owners of the house and/or survivors of the Nabua massacre would have drawn the piece into sharper focus, and it is interesting / notable that some international commentators (eg. MUBI) have failed to pick up on the political underpinnings altogether. Still, this is both AW's first genuinely political film and also his most aesthetically stimulating, filled from beginning to end with roving lateral dolly shots that recall Tarkovsky, and a menacing sound design that make wonderful use of a poorly-oiled fan. In short, it's the best thing he's ever done, albeit a little slight - a suggestion of a larger, more important work to come.

A shame, therefore, that Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives fails to live up to that promise. We may still be in Isaan, but AW shifts his focus, once again, to a wealthy character set ('landed gentry', as Boonmee is half-jokingly referred to at one point within the film) - unwilling, or perhaps simply unable, to indentify with the poor subsistance farmers who make up 99% of the population. As a result, we have a film which sentimentalises life in an extremely poor region of Thailand whilst failing to engage with the problems the inhabitants of that region have to deal with on a daily basis - extortionate lending, economic exploitation, corruption, poverty, violence against women, etc. Instead - and this is where it gets genuinely troubling - AW gives us Uncle Boonmee.

Uncle Boonmee is a nouveau riche Isaan landowner, a man in a position of power that could only be obtained through extreme cowboy capitalism and, almost certainly, through corruption and violence. Boonmee is the guy who would be doing the extortionate lending - and then sending in thugs with knvies and guns when the peasants fail to pay their 10% interest a month. Uncle Boonmee is also, we are informed, a killer of communists. He may even symbolically represent 'the Nation of Thailand', or something similar, a potentially interesting allegory that is never fully explored. Instead, time and again, AW goes out of his way to paint Uncle Boonmee as a nice and gentle guy, the worthy focus of our sympathies. Accepting his imminent death with a serene calm, never a harsh word escapes his mouth, let alone an order to kill. Pauly from Goodfellas has been disingenuously transformed into the Dalai Lama.

Then we have the red-eyed monkey ghosts who haunt Boonmee from the woods, which are hard to interpret as anything other than the ghost of the communist movement, by way of the modern-day UDD (red shirt) movement. In the short film, this barely-glimpsed presence felt organic, inevitable, there is a sense of the pheasants coming home to roost, of past injustices which have yet to be laid to rest. In the feature, however, this presence becomes simultaneously more threatening and more comical, and also, crucially, more 'primitive' (as the overall title of the project suggests) - a troubling representation of a workers movement, coming as it does from a member of the oppressing class. This possibly naive misrepresentation then flourishes into out-and-out racism in the character of Tong - Boonmee's younger, better-dressed relative, visiting from Bangkok. Whilst Boonmee may draw the audience's sympathies, Tong is the audience's gateway into Boonmee's world, perhaps even AW's alter-ego. And Tong is the only character in the film to speak Thai, not Isaan, even in the presence of his relatives. To understand how improbable this is, you have to understand that the ruling Chinese-Thai/Siamese and the indigenous people of Isaan are not just two different classes but also two different races - think of the English and the Irish in Northern Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century. Most Isaan people are capable of speaking Thai, however, understandably, Isaan is their language of choice (Isaan being a regional combination of Lao, Thai and Khmer, different enough from Thai that the film required subtitles when screened in Bangkok last year). Whilst Tong might speak Thai in his day to day life in Bangkok, it is completely improbable that he would speak Thai in private conversation with his Isaan elders - indeed to do so would show a lack of respect. One must ask then, why AW has made this entirely unnaturalistic choice. The only conceivable answer is that Tong, and the Siamese language, are supposed to represent modernity, whilst Boonmee and the Isaan language represent the 'past' or the 'primitive' - a shockingly racist conceit.

On the other hand, yes, the film is well made, formally cogent, sporadically imaginative and provides effective lightweight entertainment for unengaged international audiences. On these terms, and these terms alone, it is undoubtably a succeess. The catfish sequence in particular makes for a pleasant interlude, recalling Mizoguchi by way of Borowczyk, yet without the burning sense of social injustice expressed by those master filmmakers. Boonmee's death within the cave is also a powerful, almost moving, sequence when detached from its context. However, none of this can or should distract from the inate prejudice that AW has yet to overcome, despite perhaps his own willing, whilst A Letter from Uncle Boonmee suggesta that he is potentially capable of so much more. It is a pity, therefore, that his premature anointing in Cannes will almost certainly stunt the self-criticism that his work still so sorely requires.

Out of curiousity what did you think of the treatment of the main Laotian character. I'm not as well versed on the language thing as you so I wasn't bugged by those things, but I did find the treatment of that character to be as racist as you accuse the other bits to be.

Yes, the Laotian was something of a stereotype... To be clear, I don't think any of this stuff is intentionally racist, and at least he's attempting to approach these kinds of subjects (more than can said for, say, Ratangarung) but it's just such an ingrained part of Siamese culture/upbringing to view Issanese, Laotians, Cambodians - hell, any foreigner - as inferior that I think he's still struggling with it in a major way (in a manner not entirely dissimilar to, say, The River, Black Narcissus or Nanook of the North).

The irony, of course, is that most international viewers take his voice to be 'authentic', and this is a large part of the appeal - a kind of subconscious racism in itself!

Peacock wrote:The Blu-ray, according to comments on the Digital Fix review and in the forum for Blu-ray.com, is 1080i 50i 25fps. Which means despite it being region free, it won't play on US region locked players.

Oh fuckity. Anyone suppose Amazon.co.uk will take a return?

Nothing wrote:A shame, therefore, that Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives fails to live up to that promise. We may still be in Isaan, but AW shifts his focus, once again, to a wealthy character set ('landed gentry', as Boonmee is half-jokingly referred to at one point within the film) - unwilling, or perhaps simply unable, to indentify with the poor subsistance farmers who make up 99% of the population. As a result, we have a film which sentimentalises life in an extremely poor region of Thailand whilst failing to engage with the problems the inhabitants of that region have to deal with on a daily basis - extortionate lending, economic exploitation, corruption, poverty, violence against women, etc. Instead - and this is where it gets genuinely troubling - AW gives us Uncle Boonmee.

Uncle Boonmee is a nouveau riche Isaan landowner, a man in a position of power that could only be obtained through extreme cowboy capitalism and, almost certainly, through corruption and violence. Boonmee is the guy who would be doing the extortionate lending - and then sending in thugs with knvies and guns when the peasants fail to pay their 10% interest a month. Uncle Boonmee is also, we are informed, a killer of communists. He may even symbolically represent 'the Nation of Thailand', or something similar, a potentially interesting allegory that is never fully explored. Instead, time and again, AW goes out of his way to paint Uncle Boonmee as a nice and gentle guy, the worthy focus of our sympathies. Accepting his imminent death with a serene calm, never a harsh word escapes his mouth, let alone an order to kill. Pauly from Goodfellas has been disingenuously transformed into the Dalai Lama.

I believe I gathered more of a melancholy surrounding the Boonme character than you did. I realize it's not hammered home in bold print but I think most of the scenes involve a feeling of regret and loss while being tempered by the eastern beliefs about death. If Boonme were a Christian he might be doing more shirt tearing and wailing while awaiting hell in the afterlife but since he's Buddhist he's just awaiting the next life, feeling the tug of morals that he's spent his life not believing. I realize that you see his character as a gangster just by what he represents.

I think you have a good point that maybe Boonmes' sins should have a more pronounced underline but I think the film is going for something more subtle. Even the greatest monsters in the world probably feel a sting of regret about some of their actions at the end of their life but I doubt that regret hits them like a ton of bricks. If you spend your whole life believing one way its doubtful that another belief is going to overcome you so strongly. I don't think it's immoral to have an understanding look at this character. Do you believe Sokurov should have been harder on Hirohito in The Sun? or Hitler or Lenin for that matter?

Nothing wrote:Yes, the Laotian was something of a stereotype... To be clear, I don't think any of this stuff is intentionally racist, and at least he's attempting to approach these kinds of subjects (more than can said for, say, Ratangarung) but it's just such an ingrained part of Siamese culture/upbringing to view Issanese, Laotians, Cambodians - hell, any foreigner - as inferior that I think he's still struggling with it in a major way (in a manner not entirely dissimilar to, say, The River, Black Narcissus or Nanook of the North).

I agree that the most interesting aspect of it all is that he doesn't appear malicious in any way and the film comes across as some one who doesn't know any different. We have ignorance rather than actual hatred. As I'm sure you're going to agree on though that doesn't make it much or any better.

I'm actually in a heavy work period so I've had to put this down for a bit; but since I'm procrastinating right now %^D ... just wanted to share this.

AW wrote:"For fifteen years I had lived in a town called Khon Kaen at the centre of the region (Isaan), but I had never explored it as a whole. I doubt that many of the north-easterners do. This dry and arid land, despite its rich history, is quite off the map as a destination. I remember visiting various places with Khmer influences. But that's the limit of my exposure. Many of the people here seem to abandon these ruins and migrate to Bangkok to work as cheap labor. Once there, they are looked down upon because of their darker skin and a dialect that resembles those of our Laotian neighbors, presumed to be an unsophisticated bunch."

- Apichatpong Weerasethkaul, "The Memory of Nabua: A Note on the Primitive Project"

So I think the jabs at the Laotian provide a peek into the social hierarchy, and the "victims" (for lack of a better word, I'm doing this on the fly) becoming the "victimizers." And I think it's the ones who have moved to Bangkok who really complain about the Laotians.

It also points to how much history and tradition is being lost. Uncle Boonmee (the real one as well as the character) continually reincarnates in Isaan. Uncle Boonmee has the deepest ties to the area and the traditions. No one else seems to come close.

And I revise what I said before: a combination of the 1965 violence being more or less a slaughter of the villagers in search of Communists (some were Communists, many were not), plus an area legend that states that a 'widow ghost' abducts any man who enters her empire - takes them to join her other husbands in an invisible land (plus a couple other things about the current-day village not emphasized in the film), makes me think that the monkey spirits are broader than just hidden Communists.

I'd love to comment more, but playtime is over for now. Will come back when I can, because I see similarities with this and Lust, Caution - there are a LOT of obscurities to both (although Uncle Boonmee has very many more; it touches on history that a lot of Thais don't know, either)... This is an integral part of the Primitive Project (and the "Primitive" reference is pretty rich, I'll try to come back to it later); but some things are lost because most viewers will know nothing about it.

In part, this is an incredibly political film, about how the government has treated its citizens.

Maybe it's obscure to get past the Thai government now, and is meant as a record of the past for future viewers?

Funny - I was talking to a Korean filmmaker once, and he basically made a similar comparison: Hollywood = Bangkok = "sophisicates," South Korean film = northeasterners = "us", and Thai film = Laotians = "country bumpkins."

Received the New Wave Films blu myself yesterday, and am happy to report that it works fine on my setup - Macbook running Windows XP with PowerDVD 10, output to Apple LED Cinema Display (which I would assume is 60hz). So I'd imagine anyone with a similar setup, even output to a 60hz TV, would be fine. (Incidentally, in spite of the lament I expressed previously on this forum, I decided to go the cheap route for blu-ray - $220 drive).

The image itself looks great, only sitting quite close am I able to discern anything suggesting that it's 1080i; but PowerDVD seems to do a great job with deinterlacing, and your mileage may vary.

(I promise I'll contribute something of real substance to this forum eventually)

Alan Smithee wrote:I think most of the scenes involve a feeling of regret and loss while being tempered by the eastern beliefs about death... I realize that you see his character as a gangster just by what he represents... I don't think it's immoral to have an understanding look at this character

IRL a person in Boonmee's position would almost certainly be a gangster (as you put it), but I don't see any evidence of this in the character of Uncle Boonmee. The only violence alluded to is 'killing communists', which he may have been compelled to do as an army conscript. 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.

AW wrote:"For fifteen years I had lived in a town called Khon Kaen at the centre of the region (Isaan)

As the son of two rich Siamese doctors, having limited contact with the local people. But that doesn't sound so good in the pressbook, right? What I find more interesting - and insightful - is that, despite those fifteen years, it has taken him five features to get to the Isaan region and language. And even then...

AW wrote:they are looked down upon because of their darker skin and a dialect that resembles those of our Laotian neighbors, presumed to be an unsophisticated bunch."

...I recall an extremely similar comment in the Soi Cowboy Cannes pressbook, a year or two before this was written - is AW jumping on the bandwagon perchance? Either way, it's not his intentions I'm questioning, but rather his ability to explore the subject with clarity and insight.

lady wakasa wrote:it touches on history that a lot of Thais don't know.. In part, this is an incredibly political film, about how the government has treated its citizens. Maybe it's obscure to get past the Thai government now, and is meant as a record of the past for future viewers?

I'd agree, with reservations, if you were talking about A Letter for Uncle Boonmee - but not Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Indeed, I think it is the lack of history that is more notable, given the starting point of Nabua, which doesn't make it into the feature at all. It's as if he touched on the subject but then quickly shied away into more familiar territory. Fwiw, an "incredibly political" Thai film (although perhaps not a good one) would be Thunska's The Terrorists. Whereas Boonmee has gone on theatrical release uncut in Thailand, the government has prevented Thunska from even screening his work in the Bangkok Film Festival.

Whoever created the HD master should have created it 23.98 / 24 "psf" (progressive scan frames)

Jia's THE WORLD was shot on 25p HDCAM and slowed down to 24fps for 35mm prints. So everyone who saw the film theatrically saw it at 24fps. Instead of making a 50i/25fps Blu-ray, we slowed it down from 25 to 24 and made a 1080p (progressive) Blu-ray for increased compatibility, the eradication of any interlaced frames, and an exact replication of the theatrical experience.

BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ was shot in 25fps and slowed down by Criterion to 24fps/NTSC DVD

ANTICHRIST was shot in 25fps and slowed down by Criterion to 24fps/1080p/Blu-ray

BOONMEE's 25p master could have been slowed down to 24fps for a 1080p Blu-ray -- but the question is, why was the HD master made at 25fps anyway? (if it was shot on 16mm, blown up to 35mm, and projected at 24fps theatrically?)

Having said all that, if you're in the UK, this Blu-ray should not be missed. I saw it at the weekend and didn't even notice it wasn't 1080p.

I sent Strand an e-mail and they wrote back to say they are definitely releasing Uncle Boonmee on blu-ray on July 12th (same day as the DVD). I don't believe they've released anything on blu before but this is a welcome development. They also promised "great bonus features".