Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

“heaven is over-rated, there’s nothing there”

Deeply poetic, unconventionally deliberate and alluringly enchanting, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives finds director Apichatpong Weerasethakul on a mediative journey to tell a story that’s gushing with delight. Set in rural northern Thailand, Uncle Boonmee chronicles the story of a man dying of kidney disease who recounts his past lives as he inches closer to his eventual death.

This may be a somber telling but the narrative unravels layers of ethereal themes that will have you bemused, perplexed and, most of all, bedazzled as it transforms into a fantasy filled with nuanced beauty and a somewhat disturbing red-eyed monkey ghost.

Uncle Boonmee is beautifully shot and impeccably framed, the cinematography captures the raw splendor of rural Thailand, with its lush greenery and dense jungles. It holds it for you to gaze at, giving you time to contemplate its imagery like a carefully guided meditation. It goes even further by offering an illustrative and poetic text for your eyes and ears to goggle over. The past, the present, and the future is sprinkled in the language, again emphasizing a state of meditation on a supernatural yet utterly human story.