Review of Tropical Malady

I came out feeling that I had viewed rubbish... don't bother with it. I had read reviews, love Thailand - even to the extent of learning Thai - and was thus very very disappointed. The film is self indulgent, appeared to have no script worth the word, a juvenile editing approach which included texts and lengthy black screens and jumbled sequences. There were leaps from day to night, and non sequitur to non sequitur, from situation to situation. The dog lies on the road. The dog is happy in the lap. The dog is at the vet and dying of cancer. What had that got to do with ANYTHING? The only justification was to show that the village boy was illiterate and unable to fill in the vet's form. So what? This was a love affair, did it matter that the boy could or could not read? Later on he takes pen to paper so maybe he can write but not read. The written dialogue translated from the Thai and thus quirky had some effect... the tiger would eat the man's flesh and blood and 'memories'... nice notion. But even the quality of the goodish scenes left much to be desired. Good acting from the two leads and two lovely moments: the soldier asking permission to lay his head on the country boy's lap, and a show of affection with a long sniff kiss to the hand of the boy, followed by the boy lick kissing the hand of the soldier, followed by an incongruous moment with the boy going off into darkness and the solder riding a moped along a street with a smile on his face. Effectively there are two entirely different films present.If only they had reversed these two completely different films and paid attention to linking and a firm story line there might have been something which was less painful to sit through. I am astonished at the writers who have gone over the top with this film. I am merely confident that anyone who sees the film with anything like commonsense objectivity will agree with me. It is not smart to see inferior material as clever art. The scenes in the forest were an opportunity for some serious scary moments, but it failed. Nothing happened, there was no sense to it all. Perhaps the editor is the person to blame for there probably was not a writer or a director on the evidence placed on the silver screen by this work. I cannot recommend people see it except perhaps to challenge my views. Sorry, but very much a miss.