Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
Ok, I thought I'm going to hate this film because I didn't like Memoria (2021) and the way I imagined director Apichatpong Weerasethakul was as a privileged & praised oriental filmmaker that the people at Cannes promote mostly for his orientalism and eastern zen beauty.
But... Tropical Malady actually left me speechless.
So, I guess, I was wrong about Weerasethakul, and I'm happy I gave him another chance.
I particularly enjoyed the way the film portrays the topic of homosexuality in Thailand, as something so natural it's not even an issue or a topic to talk about. It's how I like to imagine the world used to be like before colonialism and the European research on sex.
It took me some time to connect the first part with the second one - there are many connections but I had to think hard and give a lot of benefits-of-the-doubt before I started to suspense my disbelief.
There was some supernatural sound design thing happening at the end that truly hooked me and had a strong emotions effect on me.
I still think it's somewhat overrated, but I will have to watch it again before coming out with strong statements about it.
Verdict: 4 / 5 ★ - Lovely.
