Tropical Malady (2004)

Original title

สัตว์ประหลาด

Directed by

Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Genre

drama film, LGBTQ-related film

Country

Thailand, Germany, France, Italy

Runtime

1h 58m

Rated

NR

Rating

6.7 of 10 from 140 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A romance between two men in rural Thailand shifts into a fable about a soldier who is haunted by a wandering spirit in the forest. The film follows the emotional arc of the couple and then turns to the soldier's surreal pursuit.

dreamlikeslow-burncontemplativemysteriousmelancholicatmosphericunsettlingromantic

What happens

Tropical Malady (สัตว์ประหลาด RTGS: Satpralat; lit. "monster") is a 2004 Thai romantic psychological drama art film written and directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The film is divided into two segments – the first is a romance between two men, and the second a mysterious tale about a soldier lost in the woods, bedeviled by the spirit of a shaman. Tropical Malady won the Jury Prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, and was the first Thai film to be in the main competition at Cannes. It is also the first Thai film to win a prize at one of the "Big Three" film festivals. In 2022, Tropical Malady was ranked the 62nd greatest film of all time in the Sight & Sound directors' poll and 95th in their critics' poll. In 2016, it was ranked the 6th greatest LGBT film of all time in the British Film Institute poll. It is the 164th greatest film of all time as per the list-aggregation site They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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