Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Year Released: 2010
Rating: 3.0
Farmer Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar), in the process of dying, becomes reacquainted with his late wife and missing son in 'alternative' forms: his wife as a ghost, his son as a forest animal/gorilla. Keeping with Weerasethakul's experimental roots, his picture proceeds, from this basic premise, to 'drift' around midway through, moving onto the story of a Princess who mates with a catfish and then back to Boonmee's spiritual journey and eventual passing. As much as I admire Weerasethakul's disregard for conventional storytelling, his movies do tend to more or less 'lose focus' at points - he leans towards intentional obfuscation and risks completely alienating his audience. I picked up on the basic idea of transformation and a healthy respect for the ethereal in this - not to mention a disdain for 'city life' as well as coded commentary on Thai political culture - though it's a bit too distanced (and theoretical) for me to completely become enraptured by it.
