UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES — CANNES 2010

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Excruciatingly flat, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" is the kind of tedious foreign movie that gives "art house films" a bad name.

Destined to be a critical darling for every high-brow poseur due to its undeserved Palme d'Or win at Cannes in 2010, the B-movie story is set in a remote jungle area of Thailand.

Poised as an extended reverie, the film seeks to encapsulate Buddhist theories about man's eternal sense of family and conflict, i.e. military involvement.

A father suffers from kidney failure in his family home with his sister-in-law and an assistant. This is Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar). Death awaits. During dinner conversations on the porch, Boonmee sees a red-eyed hairy vision of his long lost son lurking nearby. Think Big Foot with phony flashlight eyes.

The gorilla-like son represents a caretaker into the great beyond. So too does a ghost of Boonmee's deceased wife. The hollow mysticism extends to a seductive catfish that performs an erotically surreal union with a water nymph princess.

Artificial, ambiguous, and overwrought, this film offers one frustratingly dull experience.

Not Rated. 114 mins.