Apichatpong Weerasethakul's UNCLE BOONMEE and SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY at Walker Art Center

It is not much of a stretch to call Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century (2006) and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) companion pieces. But the same could be said for Syndromes and Tropical Malady (2004), Malady and Blissfully Yours (2002), or Yours and Mysterious Object at Noon (2000)—each one a stair step to unchallenged mythical eminence of Weerasethakul’s oeuvre; each one achieving new heights; each one challenging my own blissful hyperbolic state. (The Adventures of Iron Pussy (2003), which Weerasethakul’s co-directed, is also somewhere in the mix, but entertainingly less grounded to his other work.)

The Walker Art Center hosts the Twin Cities' premiere screenings of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives this weekend and Syndromes and a Century next Thursday (which shamefully never got a theatrical screening here.) The Walker, way ahead of the curve on Weerasethakul’s work, screened his Mysterious Object at Noon in 2001 as a part of its Asian Currents program and later brought Weerasethakul to the Twin Cities for a Regis Dialog and retrospective in 2004. It is in keeping that the Walker would score an advanced screening of Weerasethakul’s Palme D’Or winner before it lands in New York City on March 2.

Uncle Boonmee earned top prize at Cannes less that a year ago and it wasn’t too long after that Stand picked up the U.S. rights to the film. Fans have certainly been waiting with baited breath, but even those unfamiliar with Weerasethakul's films would be hard pressed not to have noticed the rumblings of Uncle Boonmee’s mysterious ghosts. As one might guess by the title alone, Uncle Boonmee is not your average film—in the best possible way. Boonmee and his past lives are very much the subject of the film, but so are the grand enigmas of life, death and spirituality. With themes this big you might expect a certain amount of grandiose staging, but this is where Uncle Boonmee surpasses average and anything that you might expect.

Weerasethakul approaches the fate of Boonmee with gentle curiosity. Inspired by a book by the same name that Weerasethakul picked up from a monk, Uncle Boonmee is a relatively straightforward account of a man who is nearing death. It takes place, however, in a setting that evokes the supernatural. That setting not only incorporates the landscape and jungles of the Khon Kaen region of northern Thailand, but also Weerasethakul’s cinematic landscape where there is something very plainspoken about abstractions. Jen has traveled to the country to visit her brother-in-law, Boonmee, where he lives and tends to his tamarind grove and bee houses. She is accompanied by Tong, played by Weerasethakul favorite Sakda Kaewbuadee. Although Boonmee seems to be in good health, we learn of his kidney disease through an early scene depicting his dialysis.

Much of what happens in Uncle Boonmee is meant to float between the known and the unknown in the same way it floats between the past and the present, and a direct narrative and illusive diversions. There is an undeniable physicality to Boonmee’s peritoneal dialysis but it is gently rolled out right alongside mystical apparitions of reincarnation. Uncle Boonmee is a rare comment on death and spirituality that is completely original in film. With an ending that is best discovered, Uncle Boonmee lays a visual and symbolic path to the end—one of the most striking is the morning sun pouring into a cave revealing only part of Jen and Boonmee. Weersethakul’s poetic license is like an open door to interpretation that I have no intention on shutting. Peppered with magic and marvel, Uncle Boonmee goes out like a showboat ready to be painted with personal or political effects.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives plays twice: Friday at 7:30pm and Saturday again at 7:30pm. Although I have seen the film twice now (at the Vancouver International Film Festival) I wouldn't miss a chance to see it again on the big screen. At this time, it is unclear whether or not Uncle Boonmee will make another appearance in the Twin Cities. Despite the overwhelming critical praise it has received over the past ten months, it is far from a ‘marketable’ film that theaters are likely to jump on. I’m hoping to be proven wrong, but Weerasethakul’s previous film, Syndrome and a Century, is a case in point. Well received at festivals around the globe, Syndromes never received a theatrical screening in Minneapolis. Syndromes and a Century came out on DVD in the US a few years ago, but I have been living with the hope that someday it would get a belated theatrical screening. As soon as you see the beautiful digression that the film takes into a lush green field for the credits, you will see what I mean.

Humor, heart and beauty are at the center of every one of Weerasethakul’s films, but it reaches a swoony tipping point with Syndromes. The elliptical story revolves around two young doctors who exist in two realms of what seems to be a time-space continuum. The first half is set in a rural hospital where Dr. Toey is interviewing a new collegue, Dr. Nohng. The film breaks off to follow Dr. Toey as she visits patients, deals with a lovesick friend, and tells a story shown in flashback of her first love. The second half opens with the same interview between Dr. Toey and Dr. Nohng but it is set in the austere modern environs of a Bangkok hospital. After the interview the camera follows Dr. Nohng as he makes his rounds, visits with his girlfriend and shares some time with his co-workers taking nips out of a bottle of alcohol stashed in a prosthetic leg. Both stories are a sweet and unaffected exploration of the pains and journeys of love and companionship, both personal and professional.

Weerasethakul, the son of two doctors, has mentioned that the film was inspired by his own experiences, and is largely based on his parents’ lives before they married. Syndromes and a Century is a layered love story—perhaps with the true romance falling just slightly outside of the frame—but it effortlessly straddles motifs of ethics, science, Buddhism and compassion with an open heart and an open mind. In both Uncle Boonmee and Syndromes, Weerasethakul takes simple situations and cloaks them in a shroud of mystery. Is there something in the air? Maybe. At least that is the allusion that Syndromes makes near the end of the film as vapors are pulled into a ventilation system. Needless to say, we get pulled in with it.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Friday, February 18, 7:30
Saturday, February 19, 7:30

Syndromes and a Century
Thursday, February 24, 7:30 Free!

VIFF: Day 11

Winter Vacation (2010)
Li Hongqi
China

Li Hongqi, be still my heart! Winter Vacation is something of a perfect mixture of Chinese specificity and avant-garde bravado. An incredibly austere set piece, Winter Vacation doesn't concern itself too much about drama or reality but instead builds a laconic daydream filled with irony and surrealism. Both adolescents and adults seem to be stuck in aimless stagnancy in a small town in northern China over winter break. Normally this vacation, which coincides with the Spring Festival (aka Chinese New Year), is depicted as an extremely lively time with family, food and firecrackers. Li Hongqi has painted the antithesis of this conception with the youth standing around looking at each other (and occasionally throwing slurs at one another) and their guardians doing much of the same. Winter Vacation is anchored by two sets of characters: five teenage boys who continually ask each other what they are going to do and an antagonistic grandfather and grandson sitting at opposite ends of a couch trading jabs. The film cycles through the non-events of the town—a thug extorting money from a kid, a woman buying nappa cabbage, a couple getting a divorce—but always returns to our two groups of heroes. At first these individuals seem oblivious to the absurdity of their stage set life until it is slowly revealed that they are more than aware of their sardonic situation. Kids and adults alike are calm but pensive. Li punctuates the beautifully barren images with a subtle soundtrack by experimental composer Zuoxiao Zuzhou (who has also contributed to soundtracks for Jia Zhangke, Zhu Wen, Yang Fudong and Ai Weiwei.) I, being a person who generally likes watching paint dry, adored Winter Vacation and it may just be my biggest discovery and favorite film of VIFF.


Chassis (2010)
Adolfo Alix, Jr.
Philippines

The VIFF program bills Chassis as "sub-proletarian Filipina Jeanne Dielmann," a trick that seemed to have me in mind. There is an air of truth in this statement (especially in their respective final sequences) but the two are literally and metaphysically worlds apart. Nora's husband drives a truck and they live with their young daughter in makeshift homes underneath idle trucks in the truck yard alongside many other families. Her husband is often absent, even when he is not driving, and seems completely uninvolved with helping raise their daughter. Under the most extreme circumstances, Nora does her best to provide for her daughter and occasionally turns to prostitution to make ends meet. At one point in the film a man on the bus is asking for donations for people with disabilities. Although it is unimaginable, Nora sees that her situation could be worse and gives the man some money. Far be it from me to tell you that her situation does get worse, but Nora's perfunctory attitude is eventually pushed to the limit. Shot in black and white, Chassis makes the most of emotion in this even keel portrayal of life on the fringes.


Mundane History (2010)
Anocha Suwichakompong
Thailand

It's hard to see a mystical film from Thailand and not think of Apichatpong Weerasethakul. But this would be ignoring that Thailand is a country deeply rooted in Buddhism, a religion that is far more open to broader definitions of life and the universe and Mundane History is magically able to work this into a simple but corporeal story. Ake is a young man who has been recently confined to a wheelchair from an accident that is never fully defined. Understandably bitter, Ake is hard on his new and easygoing nurse Pun, a man who is not much older than Ake. Early in the film, Pun laments to someone on the phone that he's not sure if he likes his job: "Everyone here is soulless." Mundane History patiently spends time proving this statement wrong. Ake slowly opens up to Pun and director Anocha Suwichakompong slowly introduces us to much larger themes that connect us all. The timeline is patterned, working back and forth within the period of time that Ake and Pun get to know each other peppered with burst of abstractions. The film derides conventional notions of time (presenting the title credit 20 minutes into the film) and the narrative is unconcerned with conclusion. As a matter of fact, the film ends with a bold statement on beginnings with an unblinking and visceral birth. The uncanny combination of macro and micro themes in Mundane History works seamlessly under Suwichakompong's gentle direction. If Pun releases animals in order to build his karma, Suwichakompong has made a film in order to build ours. It is also worth noting that Mundane History makes good use of pop songs in its soundtrack from the bands Furniture and The Photo Sticker Machine.


Oki's Movie (2010)
Hong Sang-soo
South Korea

Hong Sang-soo films should be more spread apart, because having just seen the vibrant Hahaha, Oki's Movie seems like a pale exercise. Split into four short films, Oki's Movie puts two men from different generations and their respective affair with Oki under the Hong microscope. The respective films show four different perspectives from four different times. Jingu is a film student whose affair with Oki raises the jealous ire of his professor, Song who also has a history with the young woman. Jingu is the hapless hero who we embarrassingly see flinging his ego in places it doesn't belong. In one of my favorite scene's from the film, Hong sets up a hilarious post-screening discussion where Jingu is answering questions about his film. Jingu is drunk and is being overly essoteric about his film when a young woman stands up and asks him why he dumped her friend he was seeing a couple years ago. The uncomfortable but compulsory Q & A that we all know so well is kicked up a notch as the young woman presses Jingu and no one, including Jingu, can put a stop to it. Oki's Movie certainly has its moments, but the four chapter portraiture—notated by separate credits and Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance"—seems like an unnecessary distraction.

VIFF: Day 6

I Wish I Knew (2010)
Jia Zhangke
China

Jia Zhangke's I Wish I Knew plunges into the depths of Shanghai's living history with huge doses of artistry and humanism. Politically bold and historically rich, I Wish I Knew is a compassionate search for the heart of a city bursting at the seams with modernity. Since opening its ports to foreign trade, Shanghai has been a sponge for the country's ills and advances, but has maintained its aura as a European city even in China's most xenophobic moments. The Shanghai that we know now was built by its trade prowess, but defined by wars that raged in the 30s and 40s. Although Shanghai was under constant threat from the Japanese for nearly 15 years, it was the brutal battles between the Communists and the Nationalist that held the population in a powder keg that eventually sent residents scattershot physically and emotionally. It is this fragile moment in the 1940s from which Jia excavates stories about Shanghai from people still residing in the Paris of East and others flung to Hong Kong or Taiwan. Most are recalling moments of their childhood or the trials endured by their parents: the daughter of a gangster, the son of a KMT officer, the son of a Communist officer. But Jia also mines Shanghai's cinematic past by interviewing the son of actress Shangguan Yunzhu (Two Stage Sisters, Crows and Sparrows), the daughter of director Fei Mu (Springtime in a Small Town) as well as the living actress from that film Wei Wei (recently seen in her small role in Freddy Wong's The Drunkard.) Jia also spends a brief amount of time with Hou Hsiao-hsein, in the last car of a train of course. There is also a fascinating interview with the man in charge of Antonioni as he shot his documentary Chung Kuo. Zhou Enlai had invited the French auteur, but later when Zhou had fallen out of favor with the Communist, the innocent man was rigorously questioned for his involvement with Antonioni's 'anti-revolutionary' film. The interviews, as one might expect, are beautifully staged even in the cases where they are particularly stayed. Connecting the interviews are elegiac scenes from the city that recall moments of 24 City. Jia closes out the film with interviews from the new generation: a self mad man in the stock market and the hugely popular writer/blogger/racecar driver Han Han. The English title, I Wish I Knew, is an epitaph for Shanghai's history that is being buried under its gloss and wealth, but it also seems to describe the desire of a young director too understand. The Chinese title, 海上传奇, with the characters for Shanghai inverted like Hou Hsiao-hsien's Flowers of Shanghai, is literally translated to "legend on the sea." Commissioned for the Shanghai Expo, I Wish I Knew keeps Jia on firm documentary ground with the exception of ambiguous and slightly heavy-handed interludes that include Zhao Tao. I nonetheless, relished every second of I Wish I Knew: a beautiful tribute to the city that now roars.


Insects in the Backyard (2010)
Tanwarin Sukkhapisit
Thailand

An assured debut from Tanwarin Sukkhapisit, who acts as director, writer and star, Insects in the Backyard is an oblique and very personal confrontation of Thailand's sex trade. Jenny and Johnny are teenagers whose parents have 'died' and who now live with their older sister, Tanya, a transvestite prone to wearing long black gloves and smoking gowns as she casually hangs out at home. The kids are endlessly frustrated with Tanya's constant coddling and mothering, and Tanya is always silently devastated by their rejection. The complications and confusions between the trio compel them to individually seek libido driven answers. Insects in the Backyard is a painfully honest film that is occasionally hard to watch due to its candidness. Sukkhapisit has made an incredibly brave first film.


Sawako Decides (2010)
Ishii Yuya
Japan

A sweet and effective comedy, Sawako Decides is carried by the spirited performance of Hikari Mitsushima as Sawako. Sawako is a classic underachiever, or, as she describes it, a low-middler. After five years in Tokyo, she is on her fifth job and her fifth boyfriend and neither one is worth writing home about. But writing home is something Sawako never did anyway, having left at the age of 18 with a very large chip on her shoulder. But now her father is sick, and, at the persuasion of her uncle and her boyfriend (who sees a possible career opportunity for himself), Sawako returns home to help with her father's clam packaging company. Facing the scrutiny of the entire village for abandoning her father and his business, Sawako is forced to confront her low-middling characteristics to put her life on track. Although the film has some unexpected turns, you know exactly where this film is going. Peppered with clever and funny dialogue, Sawako Decides, at the very least, aims to please.


Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Thailand

Uncle Boonmee, you are wonderful. But given my behindedness in these updates and the fact that I am going to Uncle Boonmee again in a few days, I will post my thoughts a little later.

UNCLE BOONMEE take me away!

If there is one film that is keeping me committed to my pledge to attend the Vancouver International Film Festival, it is Apichatpong Weerasethakul's recent Palme d'Or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. I even love the title. In 2001 I saw Mysterious Object at Noon (2000), Weerasethakul's first feature length film, at the Walker Art Center and was struck by its calm defiance to narrative structure. A mere three years later in 2004, Weerasethakul, who insists you call him Joe as soon as he sees you struggle with his name, was in town for a dialogue with Chuck Stephens and a short, but rapturous, retrospective. (The program took place during the Walker's renovations and was part of the 'Walker Without Walls' program. The films were screened at the Bell and the dialogue took place at MCAD.) The retrospective included another screening of Mysterious Object at Noon, a rarely seen uncut version of Blissfully Yours, a short experimental film called Haunted Houses and his new film at the time Tropical Malady, which I can easily say was one of the most overwhelming cinematic experiences I've ever had. Even after repeat viewings on DVD, Tropical Malady still remains luminous in its simplistic beauty and free-form ambiguity.

Weersethakul followed up Malady with an even more complex film, Syndromes and a Century, a film that has buried within it a million micro/macro, emotional/physical moments of connections and transcendence that I have yet to fully understand. I adore Syndromes, but am still bitter about the fact that I had no opportunity to see it on the big screen. Mark my words, this will not happen with Weersethakul's new film Uncle Boonmee. Not because I'm sure it is going to play in Minneapolis, but I am committed to travel to see this film in a theater. In a chronicle of the most anticipated films of 2010 that will be featured on In Review Online, I wrote this:

In certain circles, Apichatpong Weerasethakul is already an international superstar. Crowned the director of the decade by consensus, he was in the spotlight as 2009 came to a close with his sublime masterpieces, Tropical Malady and Syndromes and a Century, topping many lists. As we put the last decade behind us, Weerasethakul seems poised to take on the next with Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. An expansion on a short film he made last year, Uncle Boonmee not only won the Palme d’Or at Cannes but is also enjoying some homegrown respect that has thus far eluded Weersethakul's films. After bitter battles with the Thai censors over his past films, Weerasethakul deservedly saw Uncle Boonmee pass the ratings board and open in his homeland to sold out crowds. Taking place in the northeastern Thai town of Nabua, the setting of a violent Army crackdown on communists in 1965, Uncle Boonmee is drawn from a book Weerasethakul acquired from a Buddhist monk. A film that Kong Rithdee calls “a meta-thesis on cinema and its power to create illusion,” Uncle Boonmee may also have the momentum to allow Weersethakul, who works worlds beyond the narrative modus operandi, to expand his mesmerizing spell beyond the arthouse hardcore.

An Auteur for the New Century

Forget the notion that the new century of film is going to be defined by rattle-shot shaky-cam 3D aggression; perhaps it will be lead by a far more sensitive aesthetic striving for a better understanding of ourselves and the world by dazzling and challenging audiences. Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his new film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Weerasethakul (who has taken the first name Joe for the convenience of anyone who doesn't speak Thai) is just the director to lead the way into this new century. One of the most important directors from the last decade (with films like Blissfully Yours, Tropical Malady, and Syndromes and a Century), Weerasethakul may never receive wide popular success but the Palme is a step in the right direction. I can't wait to see this film.

(Until I dig myself out of various projects, you will probably see more pictures than words on my blog. As far as I'm concerned, the picture above may be one of the best of the year. It was taken by someone who deserves to get paid. It's a great photo. I'll take it down if someone gets mad.)

Tony Jaa's ONG BAK 2: THE BEGINNING

(Originally published on In Review Online.)

From the very start it is clear that no expense was spared and no detail neglected in Tony Jaa’s magnum opus actioneer, Ong Bak 2: The Beginning. The credits brighten and fade in ghostly elegance against the backdrop of aestheticized weapons and idols, opening to a chase on horseback that is visually antiquated in sepia but adored with the lush green of the jungle. The arrows sail and the hooves fly in adrenaline inducing beauty. Unfortunately, Ong Bak 2 never rallies any deeper than this type of superficial gloss and physical spectacle for mild but very muddled entertainment.

The film opens in 1421 during a familial struggle for power in the newly formed Ayutthaya Kingdom. Young Tien watches as his mother and father are assassinated and escapes through the jungle only to be captured by slave traders. When the stubborn youngster refuses to cooperate, he is thrown into a pit with an alligator in an impossible fight to the death. As one might expect, the spirited youth kills the alligator with the help of a knife tossed into the pit by a by standing admirer Chernang. Chernang, king of all the bandits, sees potential in Tien and takes him on as his adopted son. With the passage of time comes the obligatory martial arts student montage dipicting the journey from young novice to adult master. Eventually succeeding his adoptive father as bandit king, Tien slowly gains his thirst to avenge his father in an all out army of one battle against a (not so) mysterious enemy.

After the moderate but formidable international success of Ong Bak (aka Muay Thai Warrior) and Tom Yum Goong (aka The Protector), it seemed that Thailand might have its very own Jackie Chan. With amazing physical talent and creative muster, Jaa was poised to bring Thai film to a broad based international audience. When he signed on to make his directorial debut with the prequel to Ong Bak, sparks were already flying. The media couldn’t help but manifest public anticipation for the film by blowing production problems way out of proportion. When Jaa slunked off into the jungle, literally, and disappeared for two months, you could hardly blame him. When he returned, a cloud of doubt hung over the entire project, and for good reason.

Most martial arts films can survive and even thrive on a very simple, if not predictable story as long as the fighting remains inspired and the actors charismatic. This is exactly how Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li and the numerous actors before them preserved long and successful careers. Ong Bak 2 is certainly simple and the hand-to-hand combat is plentiful, but Tony Jaa fails to carry the film as an actor or director. Littered with obtuse flashbacks and incongruent plotting, it is a perplexing mess of themes and tones. The result is a rambling series of vignettes and absurd representations of warrior bravado that never engages the audience from one scene to the next. Taming a herd of elephants, fighting a tiger demon lady, and displaying various styles of martial arts feels like an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to filmmaking.

If you are looking for specific continuity between Ong Bak (set in the present) and Ong Bak 2, you may have to wait until Ong Bak 3—already announced—for clarification. That is, if anyone has the patience for a third installment.