Cinematic Past Lives: Memory, Modernity, and Cinematic Reincarnation in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Abstract

Considering the way that cinema functions as memory, this essay suggests a comparison between the spiritual functions of memory and cinema’s role in modernity. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives illuminates cinema’s link to the preservation of human memory through its exploration of reincarnation.