Tropical Malady, the
fourth feature by Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, is a film of
astonishing lyric power that explores, in myth and reality, the nature
of love. The film is divided into a conventional story of friendship between
two men, and a mytho-poetic tale that takes the viewer into the middle
of a dense Thai jungle. It is a strange and haunting tone poem that is
as multi-layered as the forest in which it is filmed and may require repeated
viewing to fully unravel. The opening story is about the tentative, playful
relationship between Dong (Sakda Kaewbuadee), a shy young farmer who lives
with his parents in the Thai countryside and Keng (Banlop Lomnoi), a soldier
on furlough from the Thai army. The relationship has homoerotic undertones
but they are suggested rather than openly acknowledged.
Tong is unsophisticated
and appears uneasy in the relationship but never loses control, giving
their friendship a charm and sweetness rarely depicted on screen, especially
between members of the same sex. They go to a movie, participate in an
exercise class, take a sick dog to a clinic, and visit an underground temple.
Their relationship develops in simple gestures of affection. Keng gives
Tong a Clash tape but later tells him that when he gave him the tape he
forgot to give him his heart. He places his hand on Tong's knee but the
boy turns it into a mischievous game of squishing his hand with his other
leg rather than acknowledging its sensual implications. Keng asks Tong
if he can lay in his lap and Tong says "no", then a minute later, he changes
that to "no problem". A scene in which Keng mouths Tong's hand after he
had urinated and Tong returns the favor with equal passion advances the
sexual nature of their relationship but it is not consummated.
As Keng leaves for the
country to resume his duties, the screen goes blank and we are transported
into a land of myth and time in which a folk tale is being narrated in
a jungle setting. Called A Spirit's Path, the mood suddenly changes to
dark and foreboding. A narrator tells us that a shaman has transformed
himself into a tiger and is terrorizing the countryside that Keng is under
orders to protect. The soldier's mission is to subdue the tiger (Tong)
and release the spirit of a white cow. The lovers are now the hunter and
the hunted. Running through the jungle with tattoos all over his body,
Tong is a naked man who can shape-shift into an animal at will. As Keng
hunts his elusive prey, he begins to lose his grounding in the normal constructs
of reality and the framing of the jungle scenes create an atmosphere of
brooding surreal intensity.
Stripped of the pretense
we call civilization, on the border between two worlds, Keng's life unfolds
in a desperate vision, suggesting that we are the both the dreamer and
that which is being dreamt. He talks to animals, sees ghosts, and receives
advice from a baboon who tells him “The tiger trails you like a shadow.
He is lonesome. Kill him to free him from his world, or let him devour
you to enter his world.” As the tiger perches on the branch of a tree staring
at him, Keng knows that in order to save his life, he must be willing to
sacrifice it. "I give you my spirit, my flesh, and my memories", he tells
the tiger, and "Every drop of my blood sings our song A song of happiness.
There… do you hear it?” Beyond the shadow of illusion, Tropical Malady
forces us to see in the dark. What begins with a wan smile ends in a fever
of ecstasy.