Tropical Malady

Even if the first part is pretty "straight" forward the second part left me baffled - maybe that was the point?... I am almost certain that I can interpret it somehow but anything I would say might and can be wrong, that's because I am somewhat convinced it's a very Thailand "kind of thing", it being a folk story. I think it has something to do with greed, because of the little story in the first part with the two farmers and the little monk.

I am still mesmerized by Apichatpong Weerasethakul's approach to framing and camera work. I find it fascinating and boring but in a good way. It's like therapy, it's like really absorbing the nature or the setting. It's like an optical illusion sometimes, the longer you stare at a frame, the deeper you go, it's hypnotizing.

Of to the next Weerasethakul - but not right away. I will let this one settle in first.

An exhilarating, confusing adventure. The first half of the film tells a love story, leaving small hints at the ways people can never really know one another. The second half uses a mythic tale and experimental style to explore that theme. It's an attempt to use film and storytelling to portray the feelings and instincts that human beings have but can't find words for. Exciting, but not for those who want everything wrapped up and defined (the film argues against the very possibility of easy definitions). I also highly recommend his two other feature-length films: "Mysterious Object at Noon" and "Blissfully Yours." Hopefully "Tropical Malady" will be released widely enough to get the attention it deserves, and hopefully one day "Blissfully Yours" will make its way to DVD.

Having had a good think about the film after seeing it this afternoon, I still can't escape the feeling that there was a really excellent film in the subject matter and narrative elements, but that the director just hadn't quite found a way to get that film to the screen. Instead, he found a film that ultimately taxes most viewer's patience. There were some really lovely elements, I agree, but there is something about the editing that was just this side of over indulgent (and I happen to generally like long, loving, camera shots that are meditative!). The jungle portion of the film, IMHO, suffered from a lack of visual information in most instances (and yet this is one of the strengths of some the individual jungle scenes, like those of the tree, the tiger and ghost ox, where, just because of this unrelenting sameness, stand out marvelously). It could have been half the length and by virtue of that, twice as effective. Having said as much, I look forward to seeing more by this director, he clearly has a head on his shoulders and the courage to tackle difficult (yet rewarding) ideas.

I agree that the film is a little disjointed - things like the very long karaoke scene (what an awful song) I found tedious and unnecessary, but rationalised to myself that the director was trying to create a lighthearted, falling-in-love-and-life-is-so-sweet kind of atmosphere - something I think was done more successfully in the scenes of the couple at the movies, in the forest, etc. This almost lulls you into a false sense of security, though the temple scene foreshadows the dramatic shift in mood that comes with the latter part of the film. The jungle scenes are powerfully spellbinding, both visually and aurally, with their long spells of darkness and almost complete absence of dialogue and they, I believe, make up for any inconsistencies in the earlier part of the film. I saw this in the afternoon, and emerged from the darkness of the cinema and the jungle feeling absolutely intoxicated. I will never forget the tiger's face in the darkness - psychedelic and haunting.

This film crushed me to the bone, exhausted my heart, and I was never again the same. It brought back faith in the uncompromised vision of cinema. Its images will forever stay in my memory; the stare of the tiger, the smell of the tropical rain...this is sensory cinema, where time is freezed and narrative is stripped, and what's left is for us to finally feel. It is utopian, but it is also sad, because we realize that there is never (and never will be) a utopia. People say love is utopian, yet according to Mr. Weerasethakul, it is also very consuming, which becomes possessive, and at the end, a burden. At the end, the soldier goes into the jungle to find what's been consuming him. The tiger. He is lost and completely hopeless; he has no purpose without the tiger, yet he cannot possibly live with the tiger because of its nature. They are co-dependent; co-exist. Is that what great love is all about?