Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Thailand • 2010 • 114 mins. • In Thai

Winner of the Palme d’Or (best film) at the Cannes Film Festival, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives has become widely considered as one of the best films of our time, the summation of director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s languid, poetic style. Suffering from acute kidney failure, Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar) reminisces about his life and is visited by the ghosts of his wife and son, finally embarking on a spiritual journey to his birthplace in a past life. Apichatpong’s radically meditative vision confronts us with big questions that don’t really have answers; therein lies part of its beauty, the other residing in intense visual and aural pleasure at every turn. “Magical, baffling, mirthful, sublime—it’s everything it’s cracked up to be.”—Chuck Stephens, Film Comment.

Genres: Drama

The Northwest Film Center recognizes and honors the Indigenous peoples of this region on whose ancestral lands the museum now stands. These include the Willamette Tumwater, Clackamas, Kathlemet, Molalla, Multnomah and Watlala Chinook Peoples and the Tualatin Kalapuya who today are part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and many other Native communities who made their homes along the Columbia River. We also want to recognize that Portland today is a community of many diverse Native peoples who continue to live and work here. We respectfully acknowledge and honor all Indigenous communities—past, present, future—and are grateful for their ongoing and vibrant presence.