philippe parreno: the boy from mars

i saw this at the kunsthalle in zurich; to get to the screening room, you walk through galleries mostly empty except for parreno's extremely bright marquee sculptures. one room was dedicated to a cloud of helium-filled black speech bubbles bobbing at the ceiling. the gallery was deserted, and the marquee at the door to the screening room slowly faded from brilliance to complete darkness while the boy from mars looped, a quiet, serene, and disquieting film made in thailand, apparently on property owned by rirkrit tiravanija. (music at the end is by devendra banhart, whose music is so surpassingly strange i am lost for words.)