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Tropical Malady Movie Review

Tropical Malady is a 2004 Thai romantic drama film directed by Arichatpong Weerasethakul. It’s as usual for the director – slow and limited in appeal.

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“Can I lie on your lap?“

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This is a romance between a soldier and a country boy wrapped around a Thai folk-tale involving a shaman with shape-shifting abilities. The movie employs a dual narrative in that these two storylines are separate in halves, but that they are somehow connected as possibly the characters are connected. I personally did not get any connections between the two halves nor did I find them impacting each other thematically all that much.

The main problem of Weerasethakul movies is their impenetrable nature. This movie was apparently booed at the first screening at Cannes and I can definitely see why. While I personally did not hate it, I also could not get into it due to its glacial pacing and uneventful nature. Its opaque, ambiguous narrative really is limited in appeal as only those into these artistic pictures can appreciate it. I prefer more narrative-driven stories myself.

However, there is something to appreciate here and that is its atmosphere. Tropical Malady has such a dreamlike quality to it that is difficult not to at least be intrigued by. The fable nature of its second half was also wonderful and the movie was much better in that section than in the first half.

That former section was fine, but the gay romance at the center of it wasn’t all that memorable having in mind that the two men aren’t well developed whatsoever. There is a lot of joy and charm to be found in their hanging out together that resembled an endless date as in a dream, but better characterization and more emotional engagement were needed to carry it through.

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The second half was more interesting, but also thematically empty and unexplained. I did not know what the director wanted to say, and even worse – I fear that he did not have anything to say at all. The cinematography is gorgeous and the film has some truly strikingly cinematic, artistic imagery. The somewhat ethereal nature of its mood and imagery was interesting, but it proved to be too esoteric to me nonetheless.

Tropical Malady is representative of everything that is wrong with Arichatpong Weerasethakul as a director. His movies are simply impenetrable to the general audiences as the glacial pacing and the strange nature of his stories, or lack thereof, require an acquired taste to appreciate them. This film certainly has a wonderfully dreamlike quality to its atmosphere and imagery and the fable feel of the second half was intriguing, but most of it was too tedious and esoteric for me personally.

My Rating – 3