Customer Reviews

Mysterious Object at Noon

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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

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. ****