The awarding of the Cannes Palme d'Or last month to Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives represented an official welcoming into the Great Contemporary Directors club for the Thai poetic experimentalist, Apitchatpong Weerasethakul ("Joe" to his friends).
While agreeing there's something hypnotic, sensual and absolutely original about the director's films - at least, those I've seen, Tropical Malady and Syndromes and a Century - I've yet to find a really satisfactory critical explanation of what's going on in them.
Not, that is, beyond pretty obvious comments about their sheer unconventionality, including their eschewal of conventional narrative structure (the two titles above are structured as double-helix narratives or dyptichs).
Even some of the world's smartest and most perceptive English-language critics, such as the UK's Jonathan Romney, have seemed a bit lost in the past when it came to pulling the films apart.
Reviewers at this year's Cannes tended to praise Uncle Boonmee for with epithets like "crazy", "out there", "totally mad", et al, which definitely captures something but doesn't really get us very far at all.
Though I have yet to see the new film (it's screening in competition in the 2010 Sydney Film Festival, which opens tomorrow night), I suspect many of its subtleties will go over the heads of a western audience not steeped in the cultural mores of Thailand.
A good insight into the director's work comes in this recent BBC radio interview (downloadable here as a podcast) - especially the influence of Buddhist notions of reincarnation in his work, as well as his desire to create a dream-like experience rather than spin a story in the usual sense.
To be fair, these aspects of his filmmaking are not obscure and have already drawn comment from some western critics. But the following reader's comment on Thai English-language website New Mandala gives a keen sense of cultural nuances that we're completely missing in the west. That being the fact the film is not only set in his country's North-East region of Isaan (bordering Laos and Cambodia) but is acted in the local Lao language:
"...after more than two hundred years, the people in the Northeasthave retained a cultural identity that is Lao not Siamese/Central Thai," writes the reader under the pseudonym "stop the massacre".
"The recent Cannes winner, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, highlights the Lao identity of Isaan. The dialogue and narration of the movie is in the Lao language–and yes it must really irk Bangkok that of all Thai movies ever made, the one in Lao should win the Palme d’Or.
"Assimilation into Central Thai/Siamese culture is not going to happen anytime soon. And as long as culturally that region is distinct, those in Bangkok will always consider it as not-really-Thai, and as such, subtle and not-so-subtle measures will continue to keep that region out of the spheres of power."
Thanks to my friend Chris for sending me the link.
1 comments:
Having seen the film in Cannes, the film is perplexing to say the least. Many people nodded off during the film and some walked out. The film will never get a theatrical release here so better watch it at the festivals. While there are some beautiful scenes and imagery and the film can get quite hypnotic, I think you definitely need some knowledge of Thai culture and history. I did like the ending though with a pop song blaring out from a karaoke bar!
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