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MOVIES / ON DVD / TROPICAL MALADY
Tropical Malady

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Tropical Malady (2005)

78%
75%
62%
N/A
N/A
N/A
78 %
Reviews Counted: 40 Fresh: 31  Rotten:9 Average Rating: 7.3/10

How does the Tomatometer work?

The Tomatometer measures the percentage of positive reviews from Approved Tomatometer Critics for a certain movie.[-]

Runtime: 1 hr 58 mins

Theatrical Release: Jun 29, 2005 Limited

Synopsis: At one point in TROPICAL MALADY, a woman tells the principle characters a traditional Thai story about ghosts and greed, and mentions the TV show WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE in the next breath. It's precisely that kind of disjunction that fuels this film from maverick director Apichatpong... At one point in TROPICAL MALADY, a woman tells the principle characters a traditional Thai story about ghosts and greed, and mentions the TV show WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE in the next breath. It's precisely that kind of disjunction that fuels this film from maverick director Apichatpong Weerasethakul (MYSTERIOUS OBJECT AT NOON), who divides his tale into two sharply-contrasted halves that suggest genre codes while defying them. Opening on a group of soldiers posing with a dead body, the film slowly makes its way to a country home where a family takes the troops in, and eventually settles on the episodic courtship between handsome soldier Keng (Banlop Lomnoi), and bashful country boy Tong (Sakda Kaewbuadee), both non-actors. Their relationship unfolds in ecstatic, tender vignettes that leave much to the audience's imagination, but the chaste touches and huge smiles the young men share are cut short when Tong disappears into darkness. When the lights come up again Keng--or, as he is referred to now, the Soldier--is a player in the retelling of an old Thai fable, while Tong is now a wild, shape-shifting ghost. The two trail one another through a jungle filled with unearthly sounds, and the line between the pursuer and the pursued disappears. Eventually the Soldier receives unlikely counsel and, following the advice he receives, allows himself to be consumed and devoured by his love. Mystifying and utterly elusive, Weerasethakul's film resists allegorical or conventional interpretation, with a pace and inner logic that will challenge the patience of some, but is sure to reward those willing to travel the distance to the end. [More]

Genre: Foreign Films

Starring: Banlop Lomnoi, Sakda Kaewbuadee

Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Producer: Charles de Meaux

DVD Info

Release:

Nov 1, 2005

[DVD Details]

DVD Features:

  • Keep Case
  • Anamorphic Widescreen - 16:9

Audio:

  • (unspecified) - Thai
  • Subtitles - English - optional

Additional Release Material:

  • Audio Commentary - Director, Chuck Stephens - Film Critic
  • Deleted Scenes

Text/Photo Galleries:

  • Storyboards

Buy It On DVD

Reviews

 
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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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Ratings Image
N/A

Maintains a visual richness, but loses its way with heavy-going forays into mythology and mysticism.

Full Review | comment Comment
03/01/07
Eric Monder
Film Journal International
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review | comment Comment
06/24/06
Time Out
Ratings Image
A

The most original film I've seen in years.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/24/06
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Ratings Image
4/5

Click to read the article

Full Review | comment Comment
04/01/06
Empire Magazine
Ratings Image
8/10

The division of the two halves is pronounced and disruptive ... but the filmmaking is assured and focused, reaching for abstraction and poetry.

Full Review | comment Comment
01/02/06
Jeffrey Chen
Window to the Movies
Ratings Image
N/A

A weird, gorgeous and disorienting act of exploration

Full Review | comment Comment
12/23/05
Jesse Paddock
culturevulture.net
Ratings Image
A-

As stylistically striking as it is adventurous.

Full Review | comment Comment
12/20/05
Nick Schager
Lessons of Darkness
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review | comment Comment
09/26/05
Onion AV Club
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2/4

A hypnotic head-scratcher that manages to be oddly fascinating and frustratingly tedious at the same time. Eventually, though, tedium wins.

Full Review | comment Comment
09/19/05
Sean Means
Salt Lake Tribune
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2/5

It goes from a love story in the making to the mystical realm of legends where men can be transformed into wild beasts and monkey guides offer sage advice.

Full Review | comment Comment
09/18/05
Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone
TheMovieChicks.com
Ratings Image
2/4

It's as if two completely different movies got spliced together in the editing room, or in the projection booth.

Full Review | comment Comment
09/16/05
Jeff Vice
Deseret News, Salt Lake City
Ratings Image
N/A

The film evolves into something deeper, a story about the atavistic wildness within people.

Full Review | comment Comment
09/02/05
Desson Thomson
Washington Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image
3.5/4

For an exquisite taste of sensory cinema, look no further.

Full Review | comment Comment
08/19/05
Jeff Shannon
Seattle Times
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A-

A film more textural than narrative, it's for viewers willing to lose themselves in a truly sensual jungle experience.

Full Review | comment Comment
08/18/05
Sean Axmaker
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Ratings Image
2/4

Some fantasy films make the leap from reality to reverie relatively seamlessly, hopscotching between the two states without leaving the audience behind. Tropical Malady is not one of those.

Full Review | comment Comment
08/18/05
Jessica Reaves
Chicago Tribune
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image
94/100

Apichatpong poetically expresses the transformative quality of love, realizing a kind of intense profundity that simply could not be reached in any other medium.

Full Review | comment Comment
08/07/05
Jeremy Heilman
MovieMartyr.com
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3.5/4

Weerasethakul’s confident composition of sight and sound induces a trance-like state with an elegant suggestion: that all-consuming love is for old souls.

Full Review | comment Comment
08/05/05
Peter Canavese
Groucho Reviews
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N/A

...as rich and dense as thick molten chocolate...and flows just as slowly

Full Review | comment Comment
07/30/05
Andy Klein
Los Angeles CityBeat
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5/5

Tropical Malady is the work of a visionary fabulist.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/21/05
Kevin Thomas
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image
5/5

This may be one of the most rapturously original, mysteriously beautiful love stories ever told -- Baboon-language skills optional.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/21/05
Scott Foundas
L.A. Weekly
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Related Forums

REEL_REVIEWER
TROPICAL MALADY appears for one showing @ the NY Film Festival ... USA release date?
by: REEL_REVIEWER 11/1/05

REEL_REVIEWER
TROPICAL MALADY appears for one showing @ the NY Film Festival ... USA release date?
by: REEL_REVIEWER 11/1/05

REEL_REVIEWER
TROPICAL MALADY appears for one showing @ the NY Film Festival ... USA release date?
by: REEL_REVIEWER 11/1/05

REEL_REVIEWER
TROPICAL MALADY appears for one showing @ the NY Film Festival ... USA release date?
by: REEL_REVIEWER 11/1/05
all

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