Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
(Loong Boonmee raleuk chat)

Uncle Boonmee is the last step of a broader project on the theme of memory (called Primitive) and developed by the filmmaker over the course of a year in the village of Nabua. Located in the north-east of the country, Nabua was occupied by the Thai army between 1960 and 1980 to crack down on the communist rebels. This historical past is also that of the character in the film, who took part in the army’s violent repression and is now suffering from terminal kidney failure. Surrounded by his family, and some dead relatives who return as ghosts, Boonmee recalls his former animal, vegetal, male and female lives… Death settles in, tranquilly and paradoxically, as if caught up in a cycle of perpetual life. In turn, Weerasethakul seems to dialogue with the phantoms of the seventh art, which also has its own past lives. AR