"Earthly matters never cease to surprise."

In Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, the titular character suspects to his sister-in-law Jen that his terminal kidney illness is karma for past deeds. Deeds that aren't necessarily wrong or immoral given the context. Except of course, in this film, we aren't really given the context. In an earlier scene, the apparition of Boonmee's late wife, Huay, sits down at the outdoor dinner table. Moments later a monkey ghost--an invented mythological creature to us, a thought-to-be mythological creature in the world of the movie--creeps up the stairs. Somehow, Boonmee and Jen intuit that the creature is actually half monkey ghost and half human and is Boonmee's long lost son, Boonsong.

But here I go describing things like plot and story. There are joys to behold beyond those elements; or maybe even partly because it obscures those elements. There's the stunning cinematography by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, especially the woods at night and a beautiful above-ground cave. There's the black silhouette of the ghost monkeys punctuated by their red glowing eyes. There's the La jetée-inspired sequence made entirely of still photographs. There's the talking catfish.

In interviews Weerasethakul mentions that the six reels comprising the movie are meant to represent six different films styles, ranging from documentaries to popular TV shows. It's a rich part of the tapestry he's creating not only with this film, but within his Primitive Project, of which Uncle Boonmee is the last installment. But even he is quick to admit that it doesn't matter if the audience is aware of such things: "It's just background".

That's a particularly smart way of approaching this singular masterwork. What we can make of the loose narrative is somewhat elusive, much of what happens elliptical. Boonmee himself may be taking that advice with regard to his final days. The arrival of Huay and Boonsong isn't greeted by Jen and Boonmee with shock and awe, but with a welcoming matter-of-factness. A ghost wife and a ghost monkey son? So it goes, he presumably says to himself. Are these just projections of his dying mind--a sort of mental purgatory he must inhabit until he releases his final breath--or do they actually exist? It's up to you to decide, although I don't really think it matters.

Uncle Boonmee seems to exist--or, perhaps more accurately, oscillate--between a surrealist aesthetic and a neo-realist (or neo-neo realist) one. Styles drift back and forth and events proceed unexplained. But rather than being confusing, the film unfolds as a dream would. And like a dream, our past and our present and maybe even our future conflate into one. Identities and relationships morph. Things don't exactly make sense, yet we accept that. It's a movie where past and present collide, man and nature come together, the living and departed coexist. All lines of division are blurred and all life is connected. And not unlike life itself, Uncle Boonmee is an experience you just don't want to end.