MUBI

Tropical Malady comes pretty close to being a masterpiece of Asian cinema, but it falls short due to a thin narrative scraped over 2 hours of occasional brilliance. Let me make myself clear, Malady is a fascinating and wonderfully crafted film, and I would highly recommend you see it. My problem is that it really feels like HALF a film. There are really only two parts to this movie, two general ideas. To me, that is like a Symphony with only 2 movements.

The first half of the movie is about a love affair between two young men. It opens with some soldiers taking a picture of a dead man found in a field. The soldiers stop at a farm to eat, shower & rest. As the opening credits play one of the soldiers sits leering and smirking into the camera, presumably at his future love interest – the boy. We are never shown this, of course, but this is part of the film’s genius; much of the plot is left to the viewer to fill in.

At this point the movie changes; we see the boy trading glances with a girl on a bus. If his awkward flirting is any indication, he is bisexual. The solider (Keng) spends time with the boy, who is quite timid and ineffectual. They goto a karaoke bar where and the boy sings a very feminine song to him. Later, a woman tells them a story of the monk and shows them the underground passage. The soldier has to go back on duty and here everything changes to part 2.

The second half is quite surreal, though simple and ultimately tedious. Keng pursues a monster who’s been stealing cows from the village. He hunts it in the dark night of the forest. Eventually we see the monster is a naked man. Even later we see the monster is the soldier’s lover. They struggle, the ‘monster’ throws Keng down a hill. He limps on to find the cow rotting. He follows the cow’s ghost and is eventually face to face with a tiger. The film ends.

Each half is about an hour long, and a pretty boring hour it is. Especially the second half. What really makes the film worth watching is the way that it’s directed and photographed, also in comparing the similarities between the two parts. The dead man the soldiers find in the beginning is likely the boy from the second half, the dog they find on the road is similar to the rotting cow, the shooting game the boy plays is similar to Keng’s trek in the woods, the boy’s song from the stage is like the tiger’s deadly gaze from the tree etc. What it all means is anybody’s guess. Mine is that ancient myths still have relevance in people lives, that we continue to play out these stories in elliptical patterns, and thus things don’t really change.

Now despite being underwhelmed with the narrative, I cannot say enough good things about the filmmaking. It’s a very visual experience, avoiding dialogue whenever possible. The photographic style is often poetic and sometimes pure, like when Keng drives his bike thru the city at night. There is also a radiant calm over the film, like Ozu or Tsai. The scenes in the jungle are especially riveting, the frame flooded with darkness except where the flashlight illuminates. Surely one of the better films of the decade, but a masterpiece? It’s missing what made Late Spring and What Time is it There? so magnificent, namely a great story.

One film. One bifurcated structure. Two actors, two roles each. Reality vs Mythology, Mythology vs Reality. While seemingly vastly different, both storylines essentially revolve around love, a chase inspired by desire, mirroring each other unrelentingly. Perhaps from the sweet, romantic and idealistic landscape of the countryside to the cold, spiritual and obsessive landscape of the jungle, the same thread of passion exists. Certainly this thread of passion can be found behind the camera.