LUNG BOONMEE RALUET CHAT (UNCLE BOONMEE ...)

Thailand, 2010, 113 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Director Weerasethakul has built up a festival following, especially with his recent films, Tropical Malady and Syndromes and a Century. While he does portray the Thai present, he goes into legendary and mythical areas and the past in a way of storytelling that is not familiar to the west. He often juxtaposes elements of story or symbols which audiences have to work on to see or intuit connections.

This is the case here, not only with legends but also with ghosts and spirits – with one ghost acknowledging that they do not live in a place but are connected to people.

The bulk of this story is that of a man who is ill, whose relatives arrive as well as the ghost of his wife and an odd creature, part monkey, part human who is his dead son. They all trek to a cave where he dies.

The last part of the film is puzzling, set in a routine present where a monk has a shower in a hotel and changes into ordinary clothes for a meal and two others watch television at some length. We have to make the connections.

1. The director and his vision, his belief in past lives, transmigration of souls? The present, reality, myth?

2. The visuals, the forests, the houses, the city, modern life and hotels?

3. The score and its contrasts?

4. The long opening, the ox, getting loose, the workers, the ox wandering, the carer coming, the appearance of the ghost?

5. The contrast with the modern times, the car, the family's arrival, the uncle and his poor health, the Laotian looking after him, care for him, the detailed tending to his wounds? Jen and her relationship with the sick man, Tong and his visit? Settling in, the meals, talk?

6. The appearance of the ghosts, the man's wife? Her saying that ghosts are not in places but with persons? Her staying, talking, helping with her husband, tending to him as he died?

7. The ghost of the son, his monkey appearance, the red eyes? His life, his life after death, mating, becoming part monkey, part human?

8. The themes of gods and ghosts? The appearance of the monkey ghosts with their red eyes?

9. The trek to the cave, for the old man to die, going through the forest, the details of the cave, the experience, the wife and helping her husband to die?

10. The contrast with life in the house, television, the meal, discussing relatives and the past?

11. The Buddhist shrine, the monks, the flashing lights? The funeral? No photos taken? Jen's regrets?

12. The hotel, counting the money, Jen keeping an account, room and her being tired?

13. Tong's arrival, his being a Buddhist monk, his changing his clothes, the long shower sequence, his wanting to go out and eat?

14. The three in the room, watching the television? The long scene of the watching television - and then the two spirits leaving (to go to a meal...?)?

15. The final credits and the long contemporary song?

16. Thai ways of storytelling, different from the West? Myths, reality? The comment on the traditions of the past? The comment on contemporary behaviour in the modern and comfortable world?