Mysterious Object at Noon (2000)

4 Stars (out of 4)

Story Hour

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

This masterpiece from new Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul blends fiction and non-fiction into a new form of cinema previously forged by Hou Hsiao-hsien and Abbas Kiarostami. For his low-budget, 85-minute, black-and-white film, Weerasethakul traveled all over Thailand, inviting people to continue the storyline he has begun about a teacher, her student, and a mysterious boy who has suddenly appeared and has magic powers. Whenever eager storytellers are not crowded in the frame tossing out ideas faster than any Hollywood pitch meeting, Weerasethakul's camera simply follows the day-to-day events of the region -- from fishmongers selling their wares to children playing with a dog. The Mysterious Object at Noon DVD comes with an English-language interview with the director and an essay by SF Bay Guardian film critic Chuck Stephens. It's one of the first releases by Plexifilm, a company to watch, and one of the first must-have DVDs of 2003.