"Uncle Boonmee" presentation recap

 Group three for 
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His past Lives
Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
(2010)
[platform blog in progress] 


Uncle Boonmee Who Can recall His past Lives (2010) IMDb
Apichatpong Weerasethakul IMDb
Thailand current politics 101/Wiki

Members Chelsea Barnett, Oslavi Linares, Nikki Forrest, José Dupuis, and Christine Cricri Bellerose

Open the discussion with the concept of time very generally by proposing it as our entry point, and then have the following related concepts to structure the conversation (with time in mind):

• linearity, non-linearity
• discussion of the formal elements: "why the cinematic?" (composition, perpetual framing, high-contrast and dark shots, editing, cinematography, visual effects, soundtrack, pace, rhythm, etc.)
• becoming (animal, Body Without Organs, De-territorialized, Pure Immanence) 

I think it would be really interesting to propose the concept of 'becoming' in relation to time because time is so omnipresent and is typically regarded as something that is distinctly human, external to us, rationally regulated. But I think the way becoming manifests in this film challenges our usual understanding of time (e.g. embodied time as we watch Boonmee in his cycles of dialysis). "

The film has many instances where  

Multiple layers or dimensions of time seem to be immanent 

(or is this co-immanent?) within the image. I think this is manifest the editing, visual effects (superimposition and transparency of images) and in the soundtrack. Rather than moving forwards 

or backwards in time the transitions feel more like vertical leaps (for example when we cut to the scene with the catfish and princess.

The “timing”, pace, rhythm etc. of the film also add to the sense of multiple simultaneous time:  
for example, the very slow fade in of the ghost at the dinner table, which feels so un-dramatic. 
It is as if the understanding that life exceeds intelligibility is “a given”.

#Corridors and #co-existence
Cinematic, there are scenes in which the camera films a space, a between-space, and characters move in-and-out; other time we hear the characters dialoguing each other outside of the cinematic frame. Metaphorically, there are corridors scenes which manipulate time and space -- compressing, tie-ing, layering, fooling. Example of these are the 1) the 'cat fish and the princess in the pond' scene, recalled in a smaller version as a pool of running cave water filled with tiny cat fish, in the 'cave-of-the-death' scene; 2) 'outdoor dinner' scene with inter-species/multi-nationals looking at photos of an other age. 

TRAILER Uncle Boonmee dir Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2010)  

#Craft

The film conveys many of its moods and impressions while displaying a idiosyncratic film language: the camera remains no closer than medium shots, with closeups reserved to convey intimacy (the princess and the catfish sequence) or interior (as in the cave sequence); most of the shots are framed in one way or another, thus we see the character's actions perpetually within, perhaps preventing us from feeling anxiety of the jungle, the animals or the spirits; the lighting grants as much, stark contrasts mot the forest as a perpetual penumbra or the twilight appearance of the opening scene and the waterfalls impossible luminescence; additionally, as was mentioned in class, sound adds to the timeliness, gluing scenes or enhancing them.

Geological and stratified time, something I (José) would describe as a "pile of moments" with no specific transition, like in a dream and, I think, in the experiences of memories. We also mentioned there was a lot of "more then" through the visual, time, lightning and colors and of course, the many human transformations and "dédoublements".
For your beautiful eyes and thoughts in motion, here is Apichatpong website with a lot of interesting stuff to dig in : http://www.kickthemachine.com/

Apichatong website