#6 Mysterious Gap

Mysterious Object at Noon (2000) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Minding the Gap (2018) by Bing Liu come from very different filmmaking traditions, but both blur the boundaries of documentary form. Each film combines multiple modes in ways that challenge the idea that nonfiction stories must follow a single, fixed style. While Mysterious Object at Noon uses hybridity as a playful artistic experiment, Minding the Gap uses it to explore the emotional weight behind personal stories and social issues.

Weerasethakul’s film is well known for being a hybrid work, part documentary, part fiction, and part collaborative storytelling project. Using an “exquisite corpse” structure, the film invites people from across Thailand to add to an evolving narrative. In doing so, interviews, observational footage, and staged reenactments blend together. This mix pushes the film toward the performative mode because it highlights the act of storytelling, and toward the reflexive mode because it constantly reminds viewers that documentaries are shaped by the choices of those who make them. Its hybridity shows how unstable “truth” can be and how creative everyday people are when asked to participate.

Minding the Gap blends observational footage with participatory elements and personal essay filmmaking. Liu films his friends for over a decade, capturing skateboarding sessions alongside difficult conversations about violence, family history, and growing up. While the observational mode creates a feeling of immediacy, Liu’s presence behind and, eventually, in front of the camera moves the film toward the participatory and even performative mode. The hybridity here is less experimental than in Weerasethakul’s film, but it is just as meaningful: mixing modes allows Liu to address issues like abuse, poverty, and masculinity through the lens of lived experience, without pretending to be a neutral observer.

The two films use hybridity for different purposes. In Mysterious Object at Noon, it functions mainly as an artistic experiment, revealing how imagination and reality overlap and how stories are created collectively. In Minding the Gap, hybridity becomes an ethical approach, helping Liu respect his friends’ experiences while also acknowledging his own connection to the community he films. Weerasethakul disperses authorship across many voices; Liu complicates authorship by placing himself inside the story.

Despite their differences, both films show that documentary modes are flexible rather than rigid categories. By borrowing from observational, participatory, reflexive, and performative traditions, each film builds a more layered understanding of reality. Together, they demonstrate that documentary can be more than a factual record; it can also be a way of experimenting with truth, memory, and human relationships.