Hair Cut Man, Hair Cut Woman

Hair Cut Man, Hair Cut Woman is an experimental video shot in Thailand over the course of 9 years. Yet, it is genuinely confounding to think of what the director wants to present through a video brimful of mannequins. The film walks us through some really amusing, and diverse mannequins after an advertising board bearing the words ‘Hair Cut Man, Hair Cut Woman’ is shown; it is intended to convey that the hair salon is unisex. I was glad that the meaning of this eccentric title was made clear early in the video. Connecting a raft of typical mannequins is a series of clippings documenting the effervescent, blithe streets of Thailand.

The power poles burdened with innumerable electric wires tangled together beyond separation, mannequins donned with western clothing, a public announcement about the situation of Bangkok in the background, people haggling over the goods in the streets, colorful Lion dance performances, young girls singing love songs, foolhardy electric workers walking on suspended wires to fix the other wires – these are some typical scenes documented to understand the life in Thailand. It seems as if the cultures and lifestyle of the West and the East meet halfway in such a touristic region of Thailand, painting the country as a strange and carefree land to the world.

The main theme is to give a glimpse of mannequins in the distant land that is Thailand; it truly is a strange subject to choose to film. There are some really weird laughing models and there are some wistful ones. It is really soothing to watch those faces, making us try to occasionally contemplate whether there is any artistic value attached to such a video. The style of street food in Thailand seems a lot like any Asian country, closely resembling the countries surrounding it and the ones that are on the other side of the sea such as India and Sri Lanka.

Passage of time may have been represented with overlapped videos with mannequins wearing modern clothes in the foreground which abruptly cuts on to a Buddha statue from behind. The statue seems very new and there are a series of images of smaller statues, which may be of important people. The film ends there leaving us in a state of muddled trance.

The film elicits no particular response or emotion, and maybe the purpose of the video is just that; the director is just presenting an aspect of life that is different from his own. It is dispassionate with no negative connotation attached to it; to be precise, the video cries for nobody’s  attention and it just exists for the benefit of people who would want to look at mannequins of Thailand and typical things that can be related to the setting of the country. Nonetheless, one may feel a sense of calmness watching the sequence of images demonstrating unresponsive faces frozen with a permanent expression etched on them. I believe I am giving a popular opinion, but I may be wrong for saying that Hair Cut Man, Hair Cut Woman is an involved project, and beyond my perception.  But that is the very nature of experimental film as an art form.