(Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004, Thailand/Germany, 114 minutes)

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

Recently coming in at #95 on Sight & Sound Magazine’s much-discussed “Greatest Films of All Time” list, Webster Film Series favorite Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s breakthrough work Tropical Malady is finally making its very belated debut on the big screen in St. Louis. True to

Weerasethakul’s early form (as exhibited in two of his films that did play here when they were new, Mysterious Object at Noon and Syndromes and a Century), Tropical Malady is bisected in structure, wherein the first half we follow soldier Keng (Banlop Lomnoi) as he meets a country boy named Tong (Sakda Kaewbuadee) to whom he immediately takes a liking. After a while, though, Keng must return to his original reason for being in the area, to investigate the strange killing of animals, which killings are attributed to a spirit or mythic wild beast. Though Weerasethakul went on to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for 2010’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and gain greater recognition still with 2021’s Tilda Swinton vehicle Memoria, many of his biggest fans contend that Tropical Malady remains his masterpiece.

In Thai with English subtitles.

Sponsored by the Gateway Korea Foundation, Betty’s Books, Metro Trans Umbrella Group, and Left Bank Books.