Review of Tropical Malady (2004) by Michael S — 19 Mar 2014

Weerasethakul continues his status as probably the most enigmatic filmmaker in the world. His movies are frustrating, beautiful, experimental, and a about a million other different words. Tropical Malady is basically a movie in two parts.

The first part is a fairly straightforward love story between two men, and the second part puts the same two actors into different roles as a soldier lost in the woods hunting for a shape shifting wild man.

I totally understand why this movie was booed on it's initial release, but I also see why it's come to a higher understanding in recent years. I wouldn't recommend this to most people because it can be incredibly slow paced at times and it's borderline pretentious, but it never jumps into ridiculous art house cliches and maintains a subtle fantasy/dreamscape throughout.

Fans of the directors other work should check it out!