Unveiling Boonmee

The Lahore Film and Literary Club screens an award- winning Thai film.

LAHORE:

The use of film as a medium to create awareness and understanding about a multitude of cultures has great potential. The Lahore Film and Literary Club capitalises on this to fill the cultural vacuum in the country through the screenings of foreign classics.

At the Sindh Asian Free Media Association (Safma) auditorium, the screening of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives provided for a great discussion on how film exposes cultures to highlight cross-cultural similarities.

Directed by Weerasethakul, the movie is about a man named Boonmee, who recounts certain real and unreal experiences of his life from his deathbed. Typically, Thai films have not really cracked into the mainstream but this film surprised the world as it won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival last May.

The dynamic non-linear story of the film shows innate details of human emotions and also exposes cultural nuances. “I screened this movie to expose the uniqueness of Thai culture,” said the club’s organiser Maryam Zulfiqar Khan, who has pushed the initiative to show foreign films to people in the community. “The point is to change mentalities, so that in the end we can conclude that world is one and that human emotions and experiences are the same.”

Khan explains that the dynamics that the film explored are such that each person can relate to the story. She also spoke about how Uncle Boonmee explores various dramatic dilemmas, such a princess who deals with her royal status.

Safear Magsi, an advocate, looks deeper into the impact of screening foreign films, citing that that the development of a lot of negative attitudes is due to a certain self centered attitude, which is prevalent in our society.

“When one comes across such movies and learns about cultures, one evolves,” says Magsi, who has been attending the club screenings for two years. “It’s an important experience, because even when cultures are different, human experiences can be the same.”

For some people, though, Boonmee remained frustrating due to the erratic and rapidly changing story line.

Muhammed Irfan, a banker, came out of the film early, banging his head due to the complicated plot of the movie, “I had a deadline: If by nine, the movie does not start making sense, I am coming out.”

Irfan spends most of his time attending art exhibitions, lectures and watching movies, which are his biggest hobby. He is a firm believer in mediums that can possibly bring people together.  “Whatever segment of society you’re from, whether you’re a maulvi or a member of the elite class, until there is a medium for people to interact, the differences grow,” he said. “Mediums such as film and arts provide a platform for people to develop a deeper perspective.”



Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2011.