UNCLE BOONMEE Opens Today

Opening in theaters today is Apichatpong Weerasethakul's mysterious reincarnation tale Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010).  It screened at the New York Film Festival last September and made many best-of lists for 2010.  Reposted below is an excerpt of my essay on Uncle Boonmee, written after its New York debut.  Click through for the full essay, and please see this truly marvelous movie while it is in theaters!

[Uncle Boonmee is] a movie of contradiction, deliberate ambiguity, and conflicting simultaneity; one that makes us consider narrative structure as we know it on-screen as we're watching the very movie on-screen.  As Weerasethakul said, this is a movie with which to interact.  Our engagement with it is what brings it to life, our experience with it is what will begin to shed light on its enigma, one that explores the nature of life and death, reincarnation, ghosts amidst the natural world, and of hybrid species with glowing red eyes in monkey suits.  Monkey suits?  Yes, and that's the fantastic beauty of Uncle Boonmee, how it so exuberantly expresses playfulness.  Even if the film's effects were made on-the-cheap, its intentions, which straddle deep layers of fear, surprise, and tenderness, are not.  Read full essay >>