When Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's 'Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives'
won the 2010 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or
Jury president Tim Burton described it as "A beautiful strange dream."
But even those predisposed to more freeform filmmaking might find
Weerasethakul, often called Joe for short, a challenge to conventions
Joe's distinctive body of work, one equally likely to include gallery installations as it is features such as
'Tropical Malady' or 'Syndromes and a Century'
unfurls to its own contemplative rhythms.
All traditional thresholds are permeable
Narratives, even identities, switch and merge
And realms both spiritual and physical
rural and urban
animal and human
coexist effortlessly, their depiction alternating between the mundane and the magical.
Based on a book by a Buddhist abbot 'Uncle Boonmee' concerns a terminally ill older, man
visited by the spirits of his long dead wife and his long-lost son
It also explored Boonmee's possible past and perhaps even future existences
On the surface then it's a simple story
Yet, also one which Joe constantly layers across time place and character
favoring sensory invocation over logical comprehension
He can subtly shift styles from a semi-documentary mode
a tribute to Thai TV costume drama
or the more old-school
self-consciously cinematic all blended together in cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom stunningly tactile imagery
Traditional Thai myths and superstitions evoke universal questions of existence and the afterlife
The matter-of-fact acceptance of spirits and their low-fi presentation are key
Yes, Joe is a low-budget independent filmmaker removed from and often at odds with the Thai industry and authorities
But expensive digital effects would counteract the essence of his work
That external positioning also allows him to stand outside his own work
And question the culture and history behind it
It's experimental filmmaking that's political but more than anything, highly personal
It's less about connecting the dots than allowing those dots to shift around in your own consciousness
to see what patterns might form.
There's a playfulness and humor here too
You don't conjure up a scene of human catfish sexual congress with solely a straight face
'Uncle Boonmee,' in fact all of Joe's work, is both its tangible self and its own ghosts,
one that appears sometimes during,
sometimes after the film plays out,
sometimes not at all.
Baffling and beguiling, it asks us for perhaps the simplest and yet most difficult of tasks:
To look anew with different eyes.