Well, Cannes and Cinéma dude have their own reasons to support it. This year's Cannes chairman, Tim Burton, may have taken a fancy to its eccentricity, and the Cinéma du Cinéma showed its inclusive old-fashioned style by praising the film. With movies all over the world following the trend of Hollywood, "Boomi" firmly belongs to the unique regional culture of Indochina, depicting an unpredictable and extremely primitive mysticism with a slow rhythm. It must be admitted that this is quite rare in the history of film, but it is still not equated with a great movie with a national character.
I got bored with it before it was halfway through: Apichatpong's shot was more lengthy than Antonioni's, and the point of view was surprisingly far from the subject, so restrained and reserved. The various raw spectacles for the first 30 minutes give the image a rhythm, but after the "Dead Man Appears" night scene it starts to get messy. After that, a completely abrupt mermaid hybrid scene was inserted. All the characters' detachment from life and death turns into a sympathy for the unusual evolution of life, and this can't help but feel strange to those who watch them. Of course, the film also shows the strange beauty of the original ecological Thai cultural spectacle. The metaphors can touch on war and peace, leaving and staying behind, nature and industry and other unreal topics are also worthy of appreciation. But the rough production turned it into a cult that pretended to be a serious movie, without the sense of humor a cult should have.
If "Sacred Mountain" ultimately fell under Hollywood clichés (the farce of modern factories, guns, and sex is actually a little superficial), "Boomi" can be said to be free from clichés but not Find the right tune. Cultural spectacle precedes philosophical speculation. Chapang has the arrogance that a great director should have, but the budget cannot support his ambitions, and the film language is even more contrived. Chapang must have discovered this too and felt guilty about it. He did not start from a real artist, from a subjective artistic point of view, on the contrary, he considered the audience's ideas everywhere, and competed with the audience everywhere. Tarkovsky is a director who likes to slow down films, which is a unique, beautiful way of expressing him. Maybe this kind of beauty can't run through the whole film, but the occasionally flashing wisdom and open artistic conception make his works have enough ancient charm. Bi Gan is an imitator of Tarkovsky, but a spiritual imitator. Carey, the eternal hometown in his heart, is wrapped in melancholy poems. Appreciating his films is like opening the door to nostalgia. You can see the thoughts drifting away. And Chapang slowed down, just to prolong the time. But what is the specific thing? Is it a religion? Is it a mysterious ritual? The people in the film are indifferent to this question, they stare blankly at the TV, relatives, lovers. The director doesn't care what his characters are doing, so I'm also indifferent to what he wants to convey.
Each audience can interpret those imaginative images according to their own wishes, the moon in the cave, the monks bathing... but they can't feel the care of people. I'm sure the actors also didn't understand their characters, let alone understand them. They are like Chapang's marionettes, fulfilling the director's existing instructions and performing to a rigid effect. The characters are so boring, the audience has to be distracted and forced to think about what those "metaphors" mean, and that's when the magic of the movie fails.
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