This film is about all life everywhere right now. All of us. The other reviewers are right about Uncle Boonmee reliving many of the memorable occurrences and changes in his life, as shown by historically-set allegories. But the main thrust of this movie is the end.
The director/author/persona/protagonist (Boonmee in the previous scenes), having died, finds his story fades away and is replaced with a clearer, more basic level of reality. He has always been a quiet Thai kid, dutifully training at a monastery. He is calm and focused enough to see outside of his own sphere. But he has this self control only because his mother bought him the freedom to do this, by sending him to the monastery. It is his sensitivity that allows him to see life in terms of stories about himself and others, and his sensitivity is apparent when he talks about his feelings toward the monastery. He also moves and showers mechanically because he is still, at base, afraid of this world.
When he gets ready to leave the hotel room, he realizes that he has left a version of himself, a "scene" from his life, in that room. It shocks and dismays him that the thread of life is so flimsy, and his identity is so subjective. The persona, or viewer, is dismayed to realize that the base level reality feels fractured even more than the myths and legends.
When he and his mother go out to the restaurant to connect more, they wind up not talking at all. And while they sit in a booth, more disconnected than ever, he hears heartfelt, sentimental, music playing from a computer where a similarly zombie-like man sits, staring blankly.
This song is the denouement. It expresses all of the love, life, happiness, and soul that the modern man has tried to seek, quantify, and trap in a bottle (computer), while our species has completely lost the ability to live those themes in reality. The people in the restaurant listen to a beautiful, soulful, human song and it doesn't even inspire them to look at each other.
The final shot is back in the hotel room where another version of himself is also disconnected from his family, this time without even anything "fun" going on. The family unit remains exactly as disconnected in this setting as in the other. In the booth, the mother sees her son's discontent with the real, modern world, but has no answers for him. In the hotel room, she doesn't even notice it enough to look at him.
This movie is deeply sad and regretful of modern (future) society in all its forms: technology, distraction, the sharp decline of pure human interactions. If you will remember the beginning of the movie, primitives in a field at dusk, the family unit is so close to each other that the camera doesn't even need to focus on them or pick up their conversation. The cow walking away is the most interesting (i.e. distracting) thing that happens in the scene. It takes them a while to notice this, and even when they do they fail to notice spirits walking in the woods.
Because they are happy, and just aren't pressured to care.
Wild.
The director/author/persona/protagonist (Boonmee in the previous scenes), having died, finds his story fades away and is replaced with a clearer, more basic level of reality. He has always been a quiet Thai kid, dutifully training at a monastery. He is calm and focused enough to see outside of his own sphere. But he has this self control only because his mother bought him the freedom to do this, by sending him to the monastery. It is his sensitivity that allows him to see life in terms of stories about himself and others, and his sensitivity is apparent when he talks about his feelings toward the monastery. He also moves and showers mechanically because he is still, at base, afraid of this world.
When he gets ready to leave the hotel room, he realizes that he has left a version of himself, a "scene" from his life, in that room. It shocks and dismays him that the thread of life is so flimsy, and his identity is so subjective. The persona, or viewer, is dismayed to realize that the base level reality feels fractured even more than the myths and legends.
When he and his mother go out to the restaurant to connect more, they wind up not talking at all. And while they sit in a booth, more disconnected than ever, he hears heartfelt, sentimental, music playing from a computer where a similarly zombie-like man sits, staring blankly.
This song is the denouement. It expresses all of the love, life, happiness, and soul that the modern man has tried to seek, quantify, and trap in a bottle (computer), while our species has completely lost the ability to live those themes in reality. The people in the restaurant listen to a beautiful, soulful, human song and it doesn't even inspire them to look at each other.
The final shot is back in the hotel room where another version of himself is also disconnected from his family, this time without even anything "fun" going on. The family unit remains exactly as disconnected in this setting as in the other. In the booth, the mother sees her son's discontent with the real, modern world, but has no answers for him. In the hotel room, she doesn't even notice it enough to look at him.
This movie is deeply sad and regretful of modern (future) society in all its forms: technology, distraction, the sharp decline of pure human interactions. If you will remember the beginning of the movie, primitives in a field at dusk, the family unit is so close to each other that the camera doesn't even need to focus on them or pick up their conversation. The cow walking away is the most interesting (i.e. distracting) thing that happens in the scene. It takes them a while to notice this, and even when they do they fail to notice spirits walking in the woods.
Because they are happy, and just aren't pressured to care.
Wild.
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