It has been six years since Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul swooped the Palme D’or at Cannes for his beguiling  movie ‘Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives’, and now he is back with another mystical tale that is heavy on fantasy, and very light on an actual narrative. The filmmaker himself has actually described this film as being either a dream about being awake, or a reality that can feel like a dream.

The setting is a former school in a small town on the Mekong River in northern Thailand that has been converted into a make-shift hospital for a whole platoon of soldiers who are suffering from an un-explainable mysterious sleeping sickness. Jenrira a local woman volunteers to help and she is assigned to look after one of the men who is called Itt who spends most of his time in a comatose state. Like most of the other soldiers Itt drifts in and out of consciousness, and it is during his periods of being awake, he and Jenrira start developing a very strong friendship. 

Accompanied by her American husband she lights a candle at the Buddhist Shrine for Itt’s recovery when the two goddess statues on the shrine itself take on human forms and appear to Jenjira in broad daylight in a rather enchanting scene.  And then there is  Keng a young medium who has the ability to read the men’s thoughts and memories in their sleep, and communicates them to their loved ones.  She uses  her ability to act as a sort of conduit between Itt and Jenjira, and much of the second half of the movie is devoted to a lengthy conversation between Jenjira and Keng-as-Itt.

Weerasethakul’s movies are mystical and magical and seem to combine fantasy with a touch of a low lever sci-fi. Esoteric and somewhat abstruse, and even if they are not always explainable, they are a real visual delight.