MYSTERIOUS
OBJECT AT NOON Documentary,
35mm, B&W, 1H 23, Thai w/ English Subtitles,
1: 1.85, Dolby SR, Thailand, 2000
2nd prize for International Competition
-Yamagata International Documentary Film
Festival,
Japan 2001.
NETPAC awards -- Yamagata Documentary Film
Festival, Japan 2001
Grand Prix - Jeonju International FF, Korea,
2001.
Special Mention Prize - Vancouver International
FF, Canada, 2000
Listed among "Best of 2000" by
Village Voice and Film Comment Magazine,
USA, 2001.
Mysterious
Object at noon is part fiction, part documentary,
and part pseudodocumentary
about several unrelated lives in Thailand.
It was shot without a
conventional script and relies on the subjects
being filmed. It is one of the first modern
Thai films that are made independently among
mainstream works.
The film crew set out on an expedition
across Thailand, from the north to the south,
documenting several lives along the way. In
the process, each subject filmed is
required to continue a story.
A next person in another city
is asked to resume the story with total freedom
of
expression. The person can even come back
to any point in the story, make changes,
and continue the tale alternatively. The film
emphasizes a documentary approach that
presents people with different professions
rather than looking for a perfect and
unbroken narrative of the fiction's storyline.
After the journey from the south, the crew
set back for Bangkok, where the collaborated
story is shot in a fiction-drama style with
non-professional actors.
Cast: Somsri Pinyopol, Duangjai Hiransri,
To Hanudomlapr, Kannikar Narong
Editors: Mingmongkol
Sonakul and Apichatpong Weerasethakul
PREVIEW IMAGES (Click
for larger size)
REVIEWS (Excerpts)
“Mr. Weerasethakul's film is like
a piece of chamber music slowly, deftly expanding
into
a full symphonic movement.” Elvis Mitchell
(The New York Times, November 1, 2001)
“Nobody has made such a film in Thailand before.
It’s clear that something rich and
strange is happening in Thai film culture.”
Tony Rayns (London Film Festival Catalog,
2000)
“…the two most memorable Thai filmmakers
I've encountered -- the radically different
Pen-ek Ratanaruang and Apichatpong Weerasethakul
-- confound the stereotypes so
thoroughly they make it clear that we Americans
don't know what Thai cinema is.”
Jonathan Rosenbaum (Chicago Reader, March 2, 2002)
“…how many documentarians have focused
on the act of constructing stories
themselves? Mysterious Object at Noon, a weird,
wonderful and altogether sui generis
new documentary from Thailand does just that, and
in the process engages, unhinges
and forever deranges the way that stories and cultural
histories could, and perhaps
should, be told.” Chuck Stephens (Filmmaker
Magazine, USA )
“(Apichatpong's) film productions are always
discourses about the possibilities of film
making…” Ulrike Kremeier, Artistic Director,
Plattform, Berlin.
