tropical malady (spoilers)

i saw "tropical malady" by thai film director apichatpong weerasethakul at bam last night. definitely a movie that, if you go alone (as i did) you really want to talk to someone afterwards, which i also did. two stories in one movie (or not depending how you view it). first part was a basic gay love story, very chaste for the most part but beautiful. the second part was a folktale about a shaman who could change shape, he was a ghost and now only able to change into a tiger. he haunted travelers. the end was so sudden that the audience stayed in the theater quietly listening to the credits, the lights slowly came up and still we waited sure (though increasingly unsure) that something more was bound to come. i really enjoyed it but it is not for everyone

as i thought about it last night, and as i woke up this morning i tried to apply it to my life/experience. i saw it as a metaphor/allegory of aids. in the first part, a young man is pursued romantically by a soldier. the second part of the movie is told as a legend or folktale. it switches the relationship from the first part so that the soldier is pursued by a shaman/tiger who is played by the same actor as played the young man, (so the ny times says) though i did not always see the similarity.

it is a story of the relationship between the hunter and the hunted. a story of wanting to be captured and consumed. the monkey tells the soldier that the tiger can smell him from mountains away, that he is the tiger's prey and companion, that the tiger is sad and lonely and that he can kill the tiger and let him go free or let the tiger consume him and become part of his world. this is the aids connection for me. allowing someone to infect you, to essentially kill you because you love them or because you want to be like them or any other reason I suppose. it reminds me of a comment someone posted to comments that i posted on barebackexchange under "how do u get negs to get bred?:"

”Hans-Christian Andersen must have been a barebacker : ) I remember his story of the Prince who's been cursed and turned into a stag who was banished to live in the woods with his sister, quite a happy life--until the King's hunters blow their horn and search for the stags.

”When the handsome Prince who lives as a human stag hears that sound, nothing holds him back any more and he runs and joins the hunt, wanting to escape and yet, wanting to get caught . . . all at once.”


as the soldier decides (i think) to let the tiger consume him he thinks (or says aloud) to the tiger "every drop of my blood sings our song." when someone infects another with aids that same thought/idea is there. the commingling of blood/of life even in death.

the whole second part could have been a dream too though, who knows. i'm glad i saw it.