City of Angels (1983)

Combining video, performance art, documentary, and tableau vivant, this short piece set in what appears to be part of the Ayutthaya Ruins in Bangkok, Thailand, begins with a panoramic shot of various Thai folks dressed in traditional garb and sleeping in the grass as a woman narrates. The rest of the piece is broken into six unbroken shots of these individuals in still poses depicting both some aspect of Thai life as well as suggesting its disquieting alienation from modernity, as the same woman narrator now sings. The final shot is again of the ensemble sleeping, suggesting that the previous montage was, indeed, a collective dream.

UlayDirector