Tropical Malady (2004)

For several years now, I've been hearing about Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Tropical Malady being the first film I've seen by him, I must confess I am thrilled to watch a few more. It is a kind of film with a style completely of its own. The first part consists of a loosely developed love story between a soldier and a country boy. They flirt, hang out in town, go to a lush music show, cuddle on a verande and talk to a lady who switches between stories about ghosts and stories about "Who wants to be a millioner". Realistic seens are mixed with dreamier ones. Some of it reminds me of the tenderness of Wong Kar Wai. The city is bustling and the countryside is alive with buzzing sounds and it is almost as we could feel the different smells of grass and food. In the second part of the film, we see the soldier hunting a tiger. The tiger is a spirit and the spirit has to be released. The spirit is his boyfriend. For almost an hour, we see mostly quiet scenes of this strange journey through the jungle, the drama between tiger and man, man and spirit, undulating and moving in surprising directions. Could I really tell what is going on? Even though many things remain elusive to me, I am not troubled by it. This is a painfully beautiful film about love and vulnerability (does Weerasethakul say: the vulnerability of love is a form of power? I hope not.). In the first scene of the film, we see soldiers standing in front of a camera. Suddenly we realize that what this photo shoot includes is - a corpse on the ground. Several scenes are like this. Things happen that change our perception of what is going on. We have to re-focus, re-orient, rub our eyes and our minds. It is a film that does not settle for linear storytelling but this does not mean that I as a viewer exert lonely acts of imagination. Just as one character haunts the other, this film will haunt me.