Film Unrated. Contains nudity, violence and gore.

Tropical Malady is a daring piece of cinema that takes its audience on a spiritual journey to understand queerness and how the process of pursuing a lover is universal for all kinds of couples.

The film raises an important question, should we accept the animalistic nature of humans? The power dynamic between the hunter and the prey is compared to sexuality in the film, specifically exploring queer sexuality. In the first part, Keng, a Thai soldier, is stationed in a forest area to investigate the killing of cattle. The pace of living in the rural village is slow until he meets Tong. They first meet at night over dinner with Tong’s family, who cooked for Keng and another stationed soldier. Not having interacted at dinner, they meet again on the road, travelling in different transportation, signalling the beginning of their romantic affair through their first interaction. The fact that they met “on the road” suggests the fleeting moment of encounters and foreshadows their parting towards the end of the first part of the film.

Their brief but exciting relationship is compared to the second narrative relating to the shaman myth. A shaman is a religious figure believed to have the ability to communicate with the otherworld. The mystique that entails the role indicates the mysterious nature of sexuality. In the second part, the soldier, played by the same actor as Keng, is sent into the forest to kill the tiger shaman. On this mission, he discovers the shaman in human form, who we first encounter at the opening of the film, instead. The human shaman throws the soldier down the mountain after the chase. When he wakes up, a monkey tells him to kill the tiger shaman so as not to be devoured himself. However, he accidentally kills the cattle instead, ultimately surrendering to the tiger shaman.

As opposed to a logical interpretation, the film’s poetic approach prompts the audience to feel. It is a meditative reflection of life and spirituality. Not everything needs to have an explanation. Nature has its discourse and humans inhabit the space. The second half of the film juxtaposes the first half of the film, comparing modernity and nature on one level. On the humanistic level, this can be interpreted as a critique of the imposed perception of sexual relations. It considers sexuality as human nature. In other words, sexuality is not a choice but it is something we must accept, just as we should accept the existence of animalistic natures that we were born with. As strange as it may be, the surrender is inevitable.