Apichatpong Weerasethakul's award-winning 'Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives' comes home to Thai audiences
That Apichatpong "Joei" Weerasethakul won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year wasn't much of a surprise.
The avant-garde artist and moviemaker had been groomed for the top slot ever since his first appearance on the Croisette in 2002, when he won the second-tier Un Certain Regard prize for "Blissfully Yours" ("Sud Saneha").
He won the third-place Jury Prize in the main competition in 2004 with "Tropical Malady" ("Sud Pralad"). And he even helped judge the entries in 2008.
But after seeing "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" ("Lung Boonmee Raleuk Chat"), winning the prize does seem surprising. Compared to other Golden Palm winners, like "Apocalypse Now" or "The Mission", Apichatpong's movie is gentle and small.
Yet it has the power to conjure up those huge epics by sheer force of imagination. An independent production put together for around Bt20 million, "Boonmee" was shot on 16mm stock and uses old-fashioned special effects. It's an antiquated film in an age of digital production and computer graphics.
And therein lies its magic. As Cannes jury head Tim Burton said, it's "a beautiful, strange, dream". And he too was surprised by it.
Apichatpong's subconscious laid bare, "Boonmee" recalls the filmmaker's past life, growing up in the 1970s and '80s, watching movies in a Khon Kaen theatre, as well as TV dramas, and poring over comic books.
It's also inspired by a Buddhist monk's sermon booklet. Cinema and spirituality combine to produce the supernatural.
"Boonmee" is different from Apichatpong's previous works, which had elliptical qualities that told abstract stories. Here, the story is as fractured as ever, but the narrative is clearer, which charming comic touches.
Nephew Tong and sister-in-law Jen - Apichatpong's long-time players Sakda Kaewbuadee and Jenjira Pongpas - take the audience by the hand on this weird odyssey, going to visit the terminally ill uncle (Thanapat Saisayma) on his farm in the Thai Northeast.
He's dying of kidney disease and wants to be surrounded by his loved ones. More folks turn up than he bargained for.
At supper one night, the family is taken aback when a woman fades in and takes up an empty chair at the table, her translucence becoming solid. It's Boonmee's late wife Thuy (Natthakarn Aphaiwonk).
Then a big black apeman with red glowing eyes mounts the stairs and takes another empty chair. This monkey ghost is Boonmee's long-lost son Boonsong (Geerasak Kulhong).
Boonmee's Lao labourer comes into the room, assesses the oddball collection of dinner guests and says, "I feel like I'm the strange one here."
And it gets even more bizarre.
The story goes back to ancient times, with a princess (Wallapa Monkolprasert, who walked the Cannes red carpet with Joei) being carried on a palanquin through the forest. She has a date in a waterfall pool with a talking catfish whose whiskers tickle her privacy.
Earlier, a water buffalo snorts, pulls its rope free and runs into the woods.
Which one is Boonmee? Even the uncle himself isn't certain.
He is drawn deeper and deeper into the forest, a mystical force guiding him to a crystal cave, his birthplace in his first life, whatever it was. In his dying throes he wonders if bad deeds he did as a soldier - tying this film into Apichatpong's "Primitive" art project on a 1960s anti-communist crackdown in a rural village - are the reason for his karma.
"What's wrong with my eyes? They are open, but I can't see a thing," he murmurs.
But we can see. Thanks to unprecedented interest in Joei's prize-winner, he's made it possible for Thailand to be the third country on the planet to witness the subtle power of "Uncle Boonmee". Usually Thai audiences wait a year or more for Joei's films, and until now, not many people really cared.
Things have changed, though. His last movie, "Syndromes and a Century" ("Sang Sattawat") was censored, with the culture controllers saying scenes of doctors drinking whisky and a monk playing a guitar were inappropriate. The harsh censorship galvanised the art-film community.
Though the authorities still censor and ban movies, there's now a ratings system in place, with "Boonmee" okayed for viewers age 15 and up.
Again, there's Sakda in monk's robes, doing inappropriate things, but this time someone tells him he's wrong.
You be the judge. Watch it and insert your own past life or long-ago movie-going experience into the equation.
With the monkey ghost and the princess, I couldn't help but think of "Star Wars", with Boonmee as a sort of doomed Darth Vader. Not sure how the talking catfish fits in, though.
Apichatpong says "Star Wars" likely wasn't an influence. The monkey ghost came from an old comic. "Or maybe 'Planet of the Apes'," he says.
SEE IT IN THIS LIFE
- "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" ("Lung Boonmee Raluek Chat") starts tomorrow in a limited run at SFX the Emporium.
- Showtimes are nightly at 7.20 with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2.45.
- Tickets are Bt140 (Bt90 for students).