Tropical Malady

Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

2004 / 124min / 35mm

Winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes, Tropical Malady was the movie that gained Apichatpong’s distinctive, dreamy vision a new level of recognition on the international stage. A bifurcated narrative, there’s no clear connection between the film’s two halves, one of which depicts the budding queer romance between a soldier and a villager in rural Thailand; the other, a soldier as he’s stalked by the spirit of a tiger shaman. The juxtaposition feels anything but random, however, and the ambiguity only adds to the film’s unifying atmosphere of seductive mystery. “[A] mid-career masterpiece… Develops a new choreography for the dance of love.”—Hilton Als, The New Yorker

35mm collection print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.