So this is a Thai movie by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who you will recall from Tropical Malady, a movie with (to say the least) an unconventional structure. This one is maybe not formally as experimental, but it’s still far from being a straightforward narrative.

This is actually a sequel of sorts to Tropical Malady, in that one of the characters in that movie makes an offhand reference to his Uncle Boonmee, who can recall his past lives; and that character appears here, as the nephew who comes with his aunt (Boonmee’s sister-in-law) to visit the man as he is dying from kidney disease.

The movie moves smoothly back and forth from a grounded social realism to the supernatural (I guess you’d call it magic realism?). One minute Boonmee and the aunt are talking about his newest employee’s immigration status; the next minute they’re having a dinner where suddenly Boonmee’s dead wife appears, followed by his vanished son, who is now a jet-black wookiee with laser eyes and calls himself a “ghost monkey.” Everyone is surprisingly chill about this, and then the next morning, they’re out touring the farm, talking about the worms that eat the tamarind leaves, and tasting honey from their hives (WITHOUT USING ANY BEEKEEPER PROTECTION, AUGH, maybe them not getting stung to hell and gone is itself supernatural).

But so Weerasethakul has said in interviews that he wants movies to just flow stream-of-consciousness like, and this one does, which gives us an interlude where a princess goes to a waterfall and proceeds to, uh, have sexual relations with a catfish that’s a water spirit. The implication is that this is one of Boonmee’s past lives, but the movie never exactly comes out and says that. But then, it doesn’t come out and say a lot of things.

Boonmee and his family end up journeying (led by his dead wife’s ghost) through the forest to a cave that’s probably not entirely natural, where he lies down and dies peacefully. This is followed by some seemingly-unrelated still shots of soldiers in the forest (including soldiers leading a tied-up ghost monkey), and then to Boonmee’s funeral, which is back in hyper-realistic mode in a garish building, followed by the rest of the family watching TV in a dingy hotel room, except that then they get up to go to dinner while also still remaining there watching TV, which is perhaps not how realism normally works.

The movie is atmospheric as hell, and absorbing on a scene by scene basis; and while it’s about death, it’s extremely relaxed and at peace about it, so it’s got a light, good-natured feel. It doesn’t exactly have a straightforward linear narrative, but it does tell a story. So despite its extremely arthouse trappings, it’s… kind of a feel-good movie to relax with on a weekend?