A Conversation With the Top Prize Winner of Cannes

CANNES, France — The Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul is known for his shape-shifting tales. Many of his films, like “Tropical Malady” (2004) and “Syndromes of a Century” (2006), seem to start over midway through, as if reincarnated.

As its title suggests, Mr. Apichatpong’s new film, “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives,” is itself a story of death and rebirth. Beloved by many critics here — the halls of the Palais des Festivals were abuzz after the film’s first press screening on Thursday — and the winner of the top prize at Sunday’s awards ceremony, “Uncle Boonmee” is a gently comic animist fable, a film about a dying man that is nonetheless filled with enigmatic signs of life (from red-eyed monkey ghosts to a sexually gifted catfish to the jungle insects whose chirps blanket the soundtrack).

At 39, Mr. Apichatpong is already a major figure in cinephile culture: a multiple award winner at Cannes (“Tropical Malady” won the Jury Prize here in 2005), the subject of a monograph published last year by the Austrian Film Museum and a polymath who moves fluidly between the worlds of art film and video art (“Uncle Boonmee” emerged from a multiplatform project called “Primitive,” consisting of interrelated installations and short films, and exhibited in Munich and Liverpool last year).

He has also been politically outspoken in recent years, and his films have taken on subtle political dimensions. When the Thai authorities requested cuts from “Syndromes of a Century,” he helped form an anti-censorship group called the Free Thai Cinema Movement. At his Cannes news conference, where journalists posed questions about the recent clashes between the government and the red-shirt protestors in Bangkok, Mr. Apichatpong did not mince words. “Thailand is a violent country,” he said. “It’s controlled by a group of mafia.”

Speaking in an interview on the lawn of the Grand Hotel here on Saturday, Mr. Apichatpong said it had been unclear if he would even make it to Cannes given the unpredictable situation in Bangkok. Earlier this week, he said, he drove around Bangkok as the city burned, going from one European embassy to another — they were being closed as the violence spread — in the hopes of securing a visa. To get around curfew restrictions, he spent the night before his flight at an airport hotel. “It’s been an adventure getting here,” he said. Excerpts from the conversation follow:

How does “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” fit in with the larger Primitive project?

The whole project started with my urge to discover the northeastern part of Thailand, which is an area where I grew up but haven’t really explored in film. I traveled near the Mekong River, visiting my hometown [Khon Kaen] and visiting the hometowns of my actors, and we ended up at this village Nabua [the site of a deadly battle between the government and communist farmers in 1965]. I was more or less familiar with the history there but not in a deep way. When I decided to work there I talked to people, shooting video and recording voices — it was like an amassing of data. My work is all about memory and I didn’t have a memory of this place. This is why this was different from my other films, which are about my personal attachments. I had to spend time there to build my memory of the place and find the hidden histories that people shared with me.

So the film is not just about Uncle Boonmee’s past lives but also about the past life of a place.

Yes, that’s right. The Uncle Boonmee story comes from a book that was given to me by a monk in the northeast a long time ago about a man who sees his past lives. But the interesting thing is that Boonmee is always reborn in the same region, which is not an easy place to live. The northeast is like an abandoned land. It’s hard for the agricultural community there because the weather and the soil are not good.

Many people have gone to Bangkok or Chiangmai to work. I found a link between Boonmee and Nabua that had to do with memory and the northeast: Boonmee, a guy who can remember so much, and the people in this village who don’t want to remember the cruel past.

“Uncle Boonmee” is more straightforwardly structured than your recent bifurcated movies, which have left some critics confused — do you think this is a more accessible film?

I was conscious about accessibility only because I wanted this to be like a children’s film or a children’s book, to retain that feeling of innocence. For me the interesting challenge was how to make a film that talks about death — this universal issue that’s been done a lot — and at the same time make it abstract enough to give the audience the freedom to use their imagination.

When we talk about death and about childhood fantasies of ghosts they’re somehow related. I believe that when you’re older, you remember more things that are further in the past. A big chunk of “Remembrance of Things Past” by Marcel Proust is about childhood.

To what extent is the film an exploration of your spiritual beliefs?

I don’t believe in reincaranation – I think it’s possible. I will know later when I die – or not. [laughs] It’s more the idea that fascinates me — that death is not the end but more of a transformation phase. It’s a romantic idea of reincarnation but at the same time there is a philosophical slant. You think about your existence here and also about cinema, how it’s a tool to preserve life, to capture something in time.

Why is this suite of films and installations called the Primitive project?

It’s about going back to the roots of things, what we have in our bodies, the primitive energy. In the village of Nabua there’s something hidden — a primal expression that needs to come out. There’s the scene in “Boonmee” where they go into a cave, which is like a womb and also like going back home, when we were in caves. On another level it’s about how we’re still primitive beings in this area of Thailand – how our political situation has kept a primitive state of mind.

“Uncle Boonmee” and the Primitive project suggest that your work is becoming more explicitly political.

In recent years in Thailand it’s impossible to deny the political situation. I still make personal films but for me this is a personal issue. The political situation is butting into my personal sphere so naturally I have to express it. It’s part of my landscape. When there’s censorship that says you cannot deal with political issues in film it pushes me to make something that is a political expression.

When we formed the “Free Thai Cinema” movement I had to learn how the government worked, and getting to know the system you find the ugliness inside. And when you look at the people in Nabua you see they don’t have the same privilege as the middle-class city people. Because of the system, there’s such a big gap between rich and poor. I’m glad people have spoken up, even though there’s violence. It’s time for change.