Mysterious Object at Noon
by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
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DVD details
Director: Apichatpong WeerasethakulCinematographer: Prasong Klimborron
Cinematographer: Sayombhu Mukdeeprom
Editor: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Editor: Tony Morias
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Thai (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Running Time: 83 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-01-21
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Plexifilm
DVD Reviews of Mysterious Object at Noon
DVD Review: You'll either love it or hate it.
Summary: 4 Stars
The Mysterious Object at Noon (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2000)
I have a friend named Serdar. Serdar is attracted to obscure films the way I am attracted to obscure music, and his taste is impeccable; I can't remember a time when he's steered me wrong. So when he makes a suggestion (or, sometimes, adds something to his Amazon wish list), I sit up and take notice. The Mysterious Object at Noon hit the wish list a few years ago; I didn't get round to buying a copy till now, figuring that eventually my library would get round to stocking it. They never did, so I shelled out the cash and got my own, sight unseen. And folks, this is one that's worth every penny.
Thai-born, American-educated Weerasethakul's first film is uncategorizable, really; it's part drama, part documentary, part surrealist exercise, part social-justice feature, and all confusing, yet absorbing for all that. The basic idea was a play on the surrealist game of exquisite corpse (where one participant would draw/write/etc. one piece of a finished product, then fold the paper over so that the next participant could only see one line or one edge, which the next participant would use to create a part of the finished work, etc.). I'm not sure it's classic exquisite corpse, as we have no way of knowing, in most cases, how much of the backstory each participant had when each started telling his or her portion of the story. Say instead that this is an exercise in community storytelling that has the same effect as exquisite corpse; one gets a sense of the community as much as one gets a sense of the story.
Weerasethakul started his college career as an architecture student, and one has to assume that seeing the world through the eyes of one who constructs had an impact on the way Weerasethakul conceived this film; the way it unfolds (and the way it was shot in strict sequence), the way the story builds sequentially, it's got that skyscraper-construction feel to it. Seeing the story unfold, seeing the turns it takes as each new teller gets ahold of it, is fascinating. Seeing the way lifestyles change as we get farther and farther into the rural areas of Thailand is equally so. I grant that this is a movie that not everyone is going to appreciate; it has no pace to speak of, and we know nothing of any of the people on the screen save that they are telling us a story, so we lack a sense of connection to any of them. This, it seems to me, is by design (going back to that sense of community I mentioned); if that's something that you would find alienating, then this is probably not a movie for you. Everyone else, though, I'd strongly recommend giving this a try; you may find yourself just as fascinated as I did. ****
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