Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
| Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives | |
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Poster by Chris Ware
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| Directed by | Apichatpong Weerasethakul |
| Produced by | Simon Field Keith Grifith Charles de Meaux Apichatpong Weerasethakul |
| Written by | Apichatpong Weerasethakul |
| Starring | Thanapat Saisaymar Jenjira Pongpas Sakda Kaewbuadee |
| Cinematography | Sayombhu Mukdeeprom Yukontorn Mingmongkon Charin Pengpanich |
| Edited by | Lee Chatametikool |
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Production
company |
Kick the Machine
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| Distributed by | Kick the Machine |
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Release date
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Running time
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114 minutes |
| Country | Thailand |
| Language |
Isan Thai |
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Thai: ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ; rtgs: Lung Bunmi Raluek Chat) is a 2010 Thai art drama film written, produced, and directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The film, which explores the theme of reincarnation, won the Palme d'Or at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, becoming the first Thai film to do so.
The film centers on the last days in the life of its title character. Together with his loved ones – including the spirit of his dead wife and his lost son who has returned in a non-human form – Boonmee explores his past lives as he contemplates the reasons for his illness.
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is the final installment in a multi-platform art project called Primitive. The project deals with the Isan region in Thailand's northeast, and in particular the village of Nabua in Nakhon Phanom, near the Laos border. Previous installments include a seven-part video installation and the two short films A Letter to Uncle Boonmee and Phantoms of Nabua, both of which premiered in 2009. The project deals with themes of memories, transformation and extinction, and touches on a violent 1965 crackdown on communist sympathisers in Nabua by the Thai army. Regarding the feature film's place within the overarching project, Apichatpong has said that it "echoes other works in the 'Primitive' installation, which is about this land in Isan with a brutal history. But I'm not making a political film - it's more like a personal diary."
According to Apichatpong, the film is primarily about "objects and people that transform or hybridise". A central theme is the transformation and possible extinction of cinema itself. The film consists of six reels each shot in a different cinematic style. The styles include, by the words of the director, "old cinema with stiff acting and classical staging", "documentary style", "costume drama" and "my kind of film when you see long takes of animals and people driving". Apichatpong further explained in an interview with Bangkok Post: "When you make a film about recollection and death, you realise that cinema is also facing death. Uncle Boonmee is one of the last pictures shot on film - now everybody shoots digital. It's my own little lamentation".
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