''Mysterious Object at Noon'' ( th, ดอกฟ้าในมือมาร, or ''Dokfa nai meuman'', literally ''Dokfa in the Devil's Hand'')Stephens, Chuck. 2001-06-18

''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the creat ...

'', retrieved 2007-03-27. is a

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

Thai Thai or THAI may refer to: * Of or from Thailand, a country in Southeast Asia ** Thai people, the dominant ethnic group of Thailand ** Thai language, a Tai-Kadai language spoken mainly in and around Thailand *** Thai script *** Thai (Unicode block ...

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when ...

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

directed by

Apichatpong Weerasethakul Apichatpong Weerasethakul ( th, อภิชาติพงศ์ วีระเศรษฐกุล; ; ) is a Thai independent film director, screenwriter, and film producer. Working outside the strict confines of the Thai film studio system, ...

in his feature directorial debut.

Production

The film is unscripted and uses the

exquisite corpse Exquisite corpse (from the original French term ', literally exquisite cadaver), is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g. ...

party game as a concept, with the film crew traveling across

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

, interviewing ordinary people and asking each person to add their own words to a story. The story is acted out and these scenes are interspersed with the interviews. The film was shot in 16mm and enlarged to 35mm for international exhibition.

Reception

Festivals and awards

''Mysterious Object at Noon'' premiered in January 2000 at the

International Film Festival Rotterdam The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is an annual film festival held at the end of January in various locations in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Since its foundation in 1972, it has maintained a focus on independent and experimental fi ...

, having received support from the Hubert Bals Fund in 1998. It had its North American premiere at the

Vancouver International Film Festival The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, for two weeks in late September and early October. The festival is operated by the Greater Vancouver International Film Fest ...

, where it won a special citation Dragons and Tigers Award. It won the Grand Prize (Woosuk Award) at the

Jeonju International Film Festival Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF, Korean: 전주국제영화제, Hanja: 全州國際映畵祭) is an Asian film festival. It was launched in 2000 as a non-competitive film festival with partial competition. It introduces independent a ...

, second prize and the

NETPAC The Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) is a worldwide organization of 29 member countries. It was created as the result of a conference on Asian cinema organized by Cinemaya, the Asian Film Quarterly, in New Delhi in 1990 at the inst ...

Special Mention Prize at the

Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival The Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival is a documentary film festival held biennially in Yamagata, Japan ( ). It was first held in October 1989, which makes it one of the longest running documentary film festivals in the world and ...

. The film was screened at many other film festivals, including the

London Film Festival The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival founded in 1957 and held in the United Kingdom, running for two weeks in October with co-operation from the British Film Institute. It screens more than 300 films, documentaries and shor ...

, the

Singapore International Film Festival The Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) (Chinese: 新加坡国际电影节) is the longest-running film festival in Singapore. Founded in 1987, the festival has a focus on showcasing international films and providing a global platform for ...

and the

Hong Kong International Film Festival The Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF), is one of Asia’s oldest international film festivals. Founded in 1976, the festival features different movies, filmmakers from different countries in Hong Kong. HKIFF screens around 230 films ...

Critical reception

Because its experimental nature falls outside the mainstream of

Thai cinema The cinema of Thailand dates back to the early days of filmmaking, when King Chulalongkorn's 1897 visit to Bern, Switzerland was recorded by François-Henri Lavancy-Clarke. The film was then brought to Bangkok, where it was exhibited. This sparke ...

, ''Mysterious Object at Noon'' received little attention in the director's native country. However, through film festival screenings overseas, the film gained positive notice from film critics. "Mr. Weerasethakul's film is like a piece of chamber music slowly, deftly expanding into a full symphonic movement; to watch it is to enter a

fugue state Dissociative fugue (), formerly called a fugue state or psychogenic fugue, is a mental and behavioral disorderDrs; that is classified variously as a dissociative disorder,Dissociative Fugue (formerly Psychogenic Fugue) 'DSM-IV 300.13, Diagnost ...

that has the music and rhythms of another culture. It's really a movie that requires listening, reminding us that the medium did become talking pictures at one point," said

Elvis Mitchell Elvis Mitchell (born December 6, 1958) is an American film critic, host of the public radio show ''The Treatment'', and visiting lecturer at Harvard University. He has served as a film critic for the ''Fort Worth Star-Telegram'', the ''LA Weekly ...

in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. Mitchell, Elvis, 2001-11-1
From Thailand, adventures in collective storytelling
''

'', retrieved 2007-03-27.

Preservation

''Mysterious Object at Noon'' has been restored by the Austrian Film Museum and The Film Foundation from the best surviving elements and released on DVD in 2015.DVD ''Mysterious Object at Noon''
/ref> and it was released in 2017 on DVD and Blu-ray by

The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

as part of the

Scorsese Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of many major accolades, inclu ...

's World Cinema Project Series No. 2 along with

Lino Brocka Catalino Ortiz Brocka (April 3, 1939 – May 22, 1991) was a Filipino film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential and significant filmmakers in the history of Philippine cinema. He co-founded the organization Concerned Art ...

's ''

Insiang ''Insiang'' () is a 1976 Philippine Drama (film and television), drama film directed by Lino Brocka. Its screenplay, written by Mario O'Hara and Lamberto Antonio, Lamberto E. Antonio, is based on O'Hara's teleplay of the same name. Set in the slums ...

''.

References

External links

Official site
* * * *
''Mysterious Object at Noon: Stories That Haunt One Another''
an essay by Dennis Lim at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

{{Apichatpong Weerasethakul 2000 films Thai-language films Thai black-and-white films Thai avant-garde and experimental films Thai independent films Films directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul Thai national heritage films 2000s avant-garde and experimental films Films shot in 16 mm film