Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Palme d’Or-winning film is a slow-burner.

 

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives leisurely meanders from scene to scene with little to no regard for plot or linear narrative, its pacing more meditative than anything else, which suits the subject matter: Boonmee, a bee keeper in the Thai countryside, is in his final days.

He spends his time with his sister-in-law Jen (his own wife died some years earlier), his nephew, and a hired caretaker (who mostly hangs around just to drain Boonmee’s kidney, and of whom Jen is mildly distrustful), eating honey straight from the comb and joking around with the migrant workers hired to assist on his farm. He is jovial and warm and seems mostly at peace, but expresses serious regret at some of his past actions, including his time spent as a Communist-killing soldier.

One night at supper, he and his companions are visited first by the ghost of Boonmee’s wife and then his long-lost son, who has returned in the form of a monkey with bright shining eyes. These visitations are treated nonchalantly by Boonmee and his friends, setting the tone for much of the rest of the film: a surreal, quiet contemplation on death that never takes itself too seriously.

Uncle Boonmee is a strange film (but never inscrutable or frustrating, other than one nonsequitur involving a catfish and a princess) where life and afterlife interweave naturally, where the mundane and mysterious become one as Boonmee prepares himself for death.

Along the way, as we amble from scene to scene and place to place, we begin to see time not simply as a linear progression but as a continuum where past, present and future coexist and interact freely. Uncle Boonmee is not always a successful film, but it is an interesting one. Once you settle in to its rhythms, the film becomes enjoyable as well, not unlike floating down a docile stream or blowing in a gentle breeze.

The film screened in Milwaukee as part of the 2010 Milwaukee Film Festival, and comes to the UWM Union Theatre May 6-8. For showtimes and more information, click here or call 414.229.4070.