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Best movie of this year hands down!

To me, this movie is perfection.

Such a frustrating disappointment

Fantastic!

I actually feel bad that I did not connect with this film. For all its perceived depth noted in other comments here (and in the pages of Film Comment magazine), this experimental Thai film left me unmoved and even a bit irritated. Perhaps I was not "viewing with my heart," as another commenter suggested was necessary.The one redeeming factor for me was the opportunity for a realistic glimpse of rural Thailand, and some scenes were indeed beautifully photographed.I am no stranger to experimental and non-narrative structures in film, but found myself fast-forwarding through much of this piece, especially the latter "folkloric" half.Inscrutable and languidly paced do not always equal a soulful, moving film experience, and I can't help but wonder if some of the praise for this one comes from those willing to be blown away by anything impenetrably arty.There really is not a lot to this film, not much happens per se, and it is left to the viewer to project one's own sensory or emotional illuminations onto the structure, what little there is. I was unable to make this leap, cold-hearted bastard that I am.

"Tropical Malady" is a lush, beautifully directed love story from Thailand that uses magic realism to spin a tale derived from Eastern folk wisdom. The first half of the film is relatively straightforward and rooted in reality, as a soldier stationed in the jungle goes on leave to a bustling city and falls in love with a young man who lives and works there. The growing attachment between the two men is chronicled with so much subtlety that it takes us quite awhile to realize that there is anything of that nature between them. Then suddenly one night, after a particularly tender moment between the two lovers, Tong walks away into the darkness of an open road, while Keng returns to his post in the jungle. When news begins to spread in the nearby village that livestock have been found dead and some humans have also gone missing, Keng heads out into the forest alone to investigate the claims. And this is where the film REALLY turns strange, for Keng soon discovers that some sort of beast may be hiding out there, devouring both animals and people, and that - get this - that beast may actually be Tong, the love of his life. This second - and, for me, slightly less interesting - half of the film is a largely wordless journey into the filmmakers' own heart of darkness.I won't try and pretend to grasp all the mystical concepts writer/director Apichatpong Weerasethakul is batting around in this film. The quotes he provides for us, drawn from famous Thai folk tales, are of some help, but much of the theme of the film remains obscure and murky for Western minds not accustomed to thinking in such pantheistic terms of the world around us. Nevertheless, the film still connects with us Occidental types, possibly because it explores that universal belief all humans seem to share - undoubtedly implanted onto our DNA way back in our primeval days - of a so-called enchanted forest, a place where evil in a monstrous form may be lurking beneath the dark underbrush ready to jump out and devour us at any unguarded moment. It shows up in many of our fairy tales, of course, and, most recently, in films such as "The Blair Witch Project," "The Village," "The Two Towers" and "The Brothers Grimm" to name a few. Yet, "Tropical Malady" also brings a romantic tenor to the subject as it implies that the love between the two men has somehow moved into a more meaningful and primal stage, one bereft of the constricting and deadening rituals placed upon it by a civilized world (my suspicion is that is why the filmmakers chose to make this a love story between two men rather than one between a man and a woman, though, frankly, the Thai society we see doesn't seem to be particularly condemning or homophobic in its response to the lads).Even if every single moment is not comprehensible to us, this is still a wonderful film to watch, primarily because Weerasethakul brings such a lyrical, impressionistic style to his direction. He fills literally every frame with fascinating details of the setting and landscape - be it the lush vegetation of an overgrown steamy rainforest or the neon-lit vibrancy of a crowded urban shopping mall. His soundtrack is also a major player in the film, particularly in the jungle scenes where the natural - and not so natural - sounds become an intricate part of the mood and drama.And "mood" is definitely the operative word here, for "Tropical Malady" is far more a film of feelings and sensations than of conventional narrative. The lovely performances by Banlop Lomnoi and Sakda Kaewbaudee, as the two men drawn into this surrealistic drama, help to ground the film enough in reality so that we go along with it even when we don't always understand it. A feast for the eyes and ears, "Tropical Malady" is a hypnotic, spellbinding film that washes over you and carries you to a world singularly its own. Take the journey.

This film certainly has a few things to offer. Beautiful images, a sense of 'darkness' and mystery, and the folk myth about a Shaman that the story apparently evolves around. However, in the end I thought this movie was pretty long-winding and far from an easy piece of visual entertainment. The film basically consists of two distinguishable parts which both last about an hour. The first half takes place mainly in the city and the second half is mainly jungle. Now this may be a problem on my behalf, but I'm not really sure I completely understood the link between first half and the second half of the film. I see the metaphor of the traditional versus the original, and I quite like the idea, but filmwise the link betwoon both parts was messy and unclear, if there was a link at all.The way I see it, the lack of much dialogue or other information to clear things up, and the presence of a lot of scenes of which I didn't really understand the relevance, didn't really help. Don't get me wrong, I kinda liked the slow pace of the story with some silent moments built in, and of course the beautiful imagery of the jungle. But I really think it was a little overdone here. There was a lot of dead wood on this tree, so to speak. By dead wood I mean the several scenes where things happen of which it was quite hard to understand the relevance to the central story line, and of course the several pretty long periods in the film where nothing really happens at all. Instead, some more 'structure' and some more elements to give the viewer a little more grip on the film in order to understand what the writer meant would have been more than welcome.

How hard is it to write up a commentary of a movie that speaks to your senses? Actually, 'Tropical Malady' wasn't even a movie as much as it was an experience for my ears, eyes and my mind.The movie is split in two halves that both tell the same story - a love story between a soldier and a countryman - one filtered through reality, one through mythology: the city where every action follows a rational and logical thread, and the jungle where there's no rule other than learning to coexist with nature and all events and emotions are primary and raw. In the second part, the country boy becomes the incarnation of a shape-shifting shaman and follows the soldier in the shape of an extraordinary tiger, as to mirror his forceful appeal and the soldier's wild desire: what was a polite, romantic and almost naive love story becomes a supernatural tale where all schemes and disguises are erased and all that's left is pure instinct.There are so many memorable moments (the theater sequence, the descent into the temple) but everything that happens in the second half speaks to you on a totally different level. Words are replaced by jungle noises, sounds become messengers of peace or impending danger - the soldier (Banlop Lomnoi, who's beyond awesome) has to choose whether to give in to desire or tame it, kill the tiger or let it kill him. The visual impact of this part is astonishing - the tiger appearing for the first time, the branches shaken by the wind, a tree lit up by fireflies: the beauty of the imagery is almost epic.Seriously, the movie deserves to be watched because putting this into words is almost like betraying its spirit. Awesome, awesome experience all throughout.