Product Description

The inspiration for MYSTERIOUS OBJECT AT NOON was the Surrealist storytelling technique known as Exquisite Corpse, wherein a variety of writers would contribute to an ongoing story one sentence at a time, largely oblivious to what came before. Thai independent filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul used this technique to interview people throughout Thailand, asking them to contribute to the film's evolving story, and, in the process, learning a little bit about their vivid, largely unexamined lives. What emerges is at once a portrait of Thailand's disenfranchised lower classes -- farmers, fruit vendors, village performers -- and their collective story about a handicapped boy and his tutor, a mysterious woman named Dogfahr.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #74746 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-01-21
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Black & White, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Thai
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 83 minutes

Amazon.com
A bit of patience is required to tap into the subtle pleasures of this lo-fi but lovely Thai film, and those willing to ride out its fragmented structure will be rewarded with a quirky meta-documentary about the nature of storytelling. Director and Thai native Apichatpong Weerasethakul took a volunteer crew into the southern and northern villages of Thailand over a three-year period, and asked the residents to contribute to a story about a wheelchair-bound boy and his tutor. The result is a sort of organic version of the Surrealist writing exercise known as Exquisite Corpse, shot through with the melodrama of Thai popular media. Weersethakul's 16mm footage is often overexposed, but the experiment itself, and the opportunities it affords to witness everyday life in rural Thailand, makes up for any technical quibbles. Plexifilm's DVD includes an eight-minute interview with the director, in which he discusses his motivations for the film. --Paul Gaita

Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times
"It's a film unlike any other... you're likely to be utterly enchanted by this unique dish of entertainment"

Filmmaker Magazine
"Mysterious Object at Noon engages, unhinges and forever deranges the way that stories and cultural histories could -- and perhaps should -- be told."

Customer Reviews

A beautiful, emotional film.
I won't go into the happenings of the film, nor will I declare various aspects of the film as being this way or that way - good bad, right wrong, etceteras. What I will say, simply and breathlessly, is that this film is so refreshing and beautiful; that it is the purity of an idea with the patience of a 1000-year-old mind and heart. That fact is, I couldn't tell you what this movie is about but emotionally I have been affected and I'm not even sure how yet. Perhaps it was my mood, perhaps if was the day and time I saw this movie, but this movie is truly wonderful. If you were looking for a comparison to this film I would say David Gordon Green's film 'George Washington' but this is a loose comparison.
In any case, this is a beautiful and emotional film. I highly recommend it.

Mysterious Corpse
Apichatpong Weerasethakul doesn't say he "directed" this movie -- he says (in an interview on the disc) that he "assembled" or "compiled" it. "Mysterious Object..." is a filmic version of the "Exquisite Corpse," where a group of people will take turns adding segments to a story, in effect becoming improvisational storytellers. What makes the film unique and refreshing is its location and mode: it's shot in Thailand amongst the villagers and people of the countryside, and they bring to the experiment a wonderful clear-mindedness and naive joy that would be hard to get out of a more "professional" group of people. The story they tell is deliberately meandering and contradictory, but it's not about the story so much as it is about the storytelling. There's never been anything like this, and fans of experimental or world cinema deserve to check it out.

Among the more striking cinematic debuts of recent times
I first saw MYSTERIOUS OBJECT AT NOON a few years ago, and eventually purchased the DVD, which has been subjected to many viewings. There nothing really quite like it.

Based around the surrealists' 'Exquisite Corpse' game, the film was assembled over 3 years from mostly improvised footage, with everyone involved a simultaneous actor/collaborator/creator of this grand experiment. The footage was then edited down to the final 85 minute running time.

The final results are only vaguely coherent, but that's not the point. Two usually contradictory things are going on here - one, an attempt at the autogeneration of folklore, and the other an audacious piece of experimental, edgy filmmaking - simply put, Weerasethakul has brought together an avant-garde, and a world of folk storytelling (including bits of the Thai folk epic The Ramakien) that would seem to rarely coexist, much less fluorish in the others' presence, which is precisely what happens in this magical excursion into dreamlike, non-narrative impressionism. Many themes that form the foundation of Weerasethakul's subsequent body of work emerge here: memory, improvisation, and life as a process of perpetual evolution, which is here linked with the specifics of the creative process.

In creating this, Weerasethakul has created something that I think is going to be heralded as some kind of classic - though not in the short run. I note that most reviews I've run across, even from normally intrepid critics, seem to be completely flustered by this one, and mildly hostile about it. So be it - the absolute obliteration of familiar divisions: between folk and avant, between fiction and documentary, between narrative and improvisation may take a little time to sink in.

Weerasethakul's regard for roots and his homeland deserves note as well - he very clearly loves Thailand, and this film, which traverses highly variable landscapes from urban to village, from coasts to mountains, from rich to poor, views and records both land and people with a genuine affection. Weerasethakul's parents were doctors, and this film, and his subsequent features also all feature brief clinic scenes, perhaps honoring his own parents in oblique fashion. These unassuming devices and subtle qualities give this bold and formally experimental film a tremedous warmth and depth, which is - more precisely - WHY I think this film will ultimately find it's place and recognition in cinematic history.

-David Alston