Jan 24, 2011
SFFILM
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Lung Boonmee raluek chat, England/Thailand/France/Germany/Spain 2010), the idiosyncratic new film by singular Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, opens Friday, March 4 on SFFS Screen at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas.
Part phantasmagorical masterpiece, part rural fable of the afterlife, the latest acclaimed film by celebrated Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a mystical meditation on the impermanence of life and death. . . .
Suffering from acute kidney failure and sensing his life slipping away, Uncle Boonmee retires to the countryside where he intends to spend his final days in the care of close friends and relatives. . . . Traversing a nighttime jungle of distorted memories, he meets the various incarnations of his past lives and reaches the mystical cave where his soul was first born. A tribute to the Thai genre movies Weerasethakul watched as a child, and set in his native region (the country’s lush northeast), Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is a revelatory film that can be read on many levels: as an essay on various cinematic forms (each of its six reels evokes a different style, varying from costume drama to documentary); as a geopolitical study on a region of Thailand characterized by monks and soldiers; and as a thesis on the power of transformation. Innocent and mature, streamlined yet complex, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives revels in fantasy and invites personal interpretation. Weerasethakul’s imagination pulls the viewer into a wondrous cinematic labyrinth. -Giovanna Fulvi, Toronto Film Festival
Written by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Photographed by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, Yukontorn Mingmongkon, Charin Pengpanich. With Thanapat Saisaymar, Jenjira Pongpas, Sakda Kaewbuadee. In Thai and French with subtitles. 113 min. Distributed by Strand Releasing.
For screeners contact hilary@sffs.org
For photos and press materials visit: sffs.org/pressdownloads
At the Sundance Kabuki all seats are reserved, and an amenities fee is in effect for most shows. Tickets are available through the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas box office, at kiosks in the lobby and online at sundancecinemas.com/kabuki with print-at-home capability. San Francisco Film Society members receive discounted admission to SFFS Screen programs only and only at the box office, not online or at the lobby kiosks.
Also Coming Soon to SFFS Screen
February 4: The Time That Remains Spanning 60 years of history, Suleiman’s witty, elegiac film portrays the life of the director’s family and community known as Israeli Arabs, Palestinians who remained in Israel after its founding.
February 11: Come Undone Silvio Soldini’s film measures the day-by-day emotional cost of a love affair between a comfortably married accountant for a small insurance agency and a waiter with a wife and two young children.
February 18: And Everything Is Going Fine Steven Soderbergh’s assembled biographical tribute to Spalding Gray is as digressive and miraculously coherent as the monologues that are its principal inspiration.
February 25: How I Ended This Summer In remote Chukotka on the eastern edge of Russia, a missed communication between two men working at a polar station escalates into a taut duel of nerves. Alex Popogrebsky’s vise-like psychological thriller is part action-adventure, part gorgeous-looking art film.
SFFS Screen, the innovative exhibition partnership with Sundance Cinemas, enables the Film Society to present its acclaimed film programs and events at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas year-round.
For full, complete and up-to-date information on all SFFS Screen programming, including buying tickets, visit sffs.org. Information and tickets are also available at sundancecinemas.com.