Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives

I would say I experienced this film rather than watched it. Wikipedia quotes a review that called it "a floating world" which seems about the best description that could be found. Wikipedia also informed me that the film was shot on 16 mm film instead of digitally, which I wondered about because the picture seemed old looking. (My amazingly technical description. Don't judge me. Editing my own papers liquified my brain.)

I would describe UBWCHPL as a film of waiting, of nostalgia, beginnings and endings flowing together. It sort of wrapped me up and enthralled me, even though I don't really know what happened exactly. A man is dying, and he knows it. He wants to make sure of things that he will leave behind. He doesn't seem to worry too much about what is ahead, but when his dead wife appears to stay with him in his last days, he wants to know where he's going. "What's heaven like?" he asks. "There's nothing there," she tells him. "Ghosts are tied to people, not places." "But what happens when I die?" he wants to know. There is no answer. As he dies, he remembers one of his previous births. It is extremely poignent.

There were some very odd things as well. (The monkey ghosts. I can't think about them or I will be frightened to look out my window. Also, there was a side story about a princess and a catfish. It is possible it was one of Boonmee's past lives? If I hadn't read about the scene prior to watching the film I would have thought two movies got overlapped. The ending was odd also. Did the future split and multiply? I am not sure.) But overall, I enjoyed it very much. Particularly, it was gorgeously shot and the Isaan setting was simply beautiful. The jungle provides a good backdrop for ghostly happenings. It is so easy to imagine you might see something... The sounds were wonderful too. They sounded like home. There was not a musical score, so what was heard were the setting noises: the bugs and chinchoks and monkey birds. Painfully ordinary and everyday and comforting and strange at the same time. And that's the thing: the spiritual and supernatural are found everywhere in this film. Even (especially) in the mundane.