Mysterious Object at Noon

Rating:
Summary: Mysterious Corpse
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Mysterious Corpse
Review: 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.