Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) on Netflix
Boonmee is dying of kidney failure and spends his final days on the family farm with Jen, his sister-in-law. The spirit of his wife Huay appears, and his lost son Boonsong returns.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb6.7/1019,154 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes89%
Trailer
Plot summary
Boonmee lives on a farm in northern Thailand with Jen, his sister-in-law, and his nephew Tong. His kidney is failing, and his assistant Jaai treats him with peritoneal dialysis. One evening, as the three of them eat dinner, the ghost of his wife Huay appears; she says she heard their prayers and knows how ill he is. A hairy figure with glowing red eyes then joins them: Boonsong, Boonmee's son, who vanished years ago and now lives in another form. He had gone searching for a creature he once caught in a photograph, he explains; after meeting his mate he forgot his former life. Boonmee tells Jen that his sickness is karma, from the communists he killed as a soldier and the insects he killed on the farm.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film drew on a real man named Boonmee, who told Phra Sripariyattiweti, abbot of a Buddhist temple, that he could clearly recall his past lives while meditating; the abbot published a book about him in 1983. By the time Apichatpong Weerasethakul read it, Boonmee had died.
- The film won the Palme d'Or at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, making it the first Asian film to take the prize since 1997, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul the first Thai director to receive it.
- The film passed the Thai censorship board uncut, even though it features scenes similar to ones that had been cut from Apichatpong Weerasethakul's two previous feature films.
- The film is built from six reels, each shot in a different cinematic style, among them what Apichatpong Weerasethakul called "old cinema with stiff acting and classical staging", "documentary style" and "costume drama".
