This is a film I have somehow avoided since its release. Why ? Perhaps the heteronormative critics put me off and the habitual cry ' this is not a gay film ' I maybe wrong but in Thai culture gay is replaced by ' people like us '. And this quite definitely in my opinion is a people like us film. On Wikipedia the director is listed as a Gay Writer and an LGBT director. So please reviewers late to this film bear this in mind and do not wriggle straight toes out of this. Everyone will have an interpretation of the meaning. I would suggest it is a spiritual film and that the tiger spirit is the ultimate creature, or monster where at last the two male lovers are incorporated and eternally together. One reviewer mentioned ecstasy at the end, and yes this is their eternal ecstasy. But before we reach this overwhelmingly beautiful forest sequence which is scary to some but not to me, we have the everyday life of the lovers. The playful touching in the cinema, the vowing of love and the kissing of hands at the end of the first half. This latter scene is so full of passion, love and the GIVING of hands that it was both utterly pure and deeply erotic at the same time. And no reviewer has acknowledged the nudity, the scene of defecation and the urination scenes. Why ? Prudery ? I can only guess yes, but those scenes show how all of the body, in all its functions is given over to the spirit of love at the end. The body can be saved only in the body it has been assigned to. Meister Eckhart said this centuries ago. This film shows in its masterful way that love is always to be called by its name, in all its true forms and the forest is a state not to be feared but embraced. A masterpiece that needs and should have endless viewings.
Review of Tropical Malady
