Mysterious Object at Noon
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