Mysterious Object at Noon

Far from an empty vessel, the film encourages an ever increasing proliferation of odd topics and perspectives.

So many thematic and tonal elements of Weerasethakul's later, more celebrated films, are evident in Mysterious Object at Noon that it would be easy to consider as a formative exercise alone, but even as he began to explore these fertile soils, he was creating a work of captivating and arresting beauty.

Result is a weird hodgepodge that has the audience doing mental somersaults in an attempt to keep up with this highly original festival head-scratcher.

All of this free association falls under the wide umbrella of "experimental" cinema, meaning that the often flagging pace and incoherent stretches are balanced by sublime moments of inspiration.

Experimental films are frequently criticized for being boring because they say and do too little, but the best of them put us in exhilarating overdrive because they offer too much.

Weerasethakul mixes fact, fiction and filmmaking into a blend that's intriguingly obtuse, yet surprisingly revelatory.

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 that has the music and rhythms of another culture.