Mysterious Object at Noon (2000, Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

A mutating fiction containing documentary-like scenes – unlike his other films, which sometimes have people playing versions of themselves but would never be confused for docs – the fictional part being written by the doc participants as the movie goes along. There is a teacher named Dogfahr, a crippled alien boy, and lots of transformations.

The woman who gives the film its title:

The last major work I’d never seen by A.W., unless anyone wants to argue for The Adventures of Iron Pussy. It’s unique, but not one of my faves. Why do the closing credits appear 10 minutes before the end of the movie, then just shots of young kids playing? “The woman turned into a tiger”, a precursor to Tropical Malady?

Dennis Lim for Criterion:

Mysterious Object at Noon revels in the myriad ways a story can be transmitted. A performance troupe acts out its segment in a traditional song-and-dance routine. A pair of deaf girls use sign language. Sometimes we watch and listen to the narrators as they concoct new installments; sometimes we see their fabulations dramatized, occasionally with voice-over or intertitles to move things along. The scenario grows at once darker and more absurd as it progresses, its lurid developments living up to the film’s pulpy Thai title, Dogfahr in the Devil’s Hand.