You’re in his DMs, I’m stalking him naked through the jungle as a cattle-mutilating ghost-tiger trying to consume his spirit, his flesh, and his memories. We are not the same.

"The tiger trails you like a shadow. His spirit is starving and lonesome. I see you are his prey and his companion. He can smell you from mountains away. And soon you will feel the same. Kill him to free him from the ghost world or let him devour you and enter his world."

"A creature whose life exists only by memories of others."

"And now I see myself. My mother, my father; fear, sadness. It was all so real, so real that they brought me to life."

85/100

[Reviewed from NYFF '04.]

Opinion seems divided about whether this exquisitely uncanny gay romance tells one linear, simple-yet-oblique story, switching rhetorical gears at the midpoint, or whether its mythic second half to some extent recapitulates its mundane first. Both positions have merit—though I found a number of apparent rhymes on second viewing supporting the latter—but more compelling than either, to my mind, is the film's implicit suggestion that no amount of artful, naturalistic observation can possibly convey the atavistic turmoil lurking within the human heart. Unexpected though the rupture may be, it arrives precisely at the moment when conventional representation, however inventive, precise and assured, starts to feel painfully inadequate. The jungle adventure that follows—beautiful, mysterious, savage, tentative, spontaneous, unforgettable—deserves a less hackneyed and misleading phrase than "pure cinema," but somebody else will have to come up with the neologism. I'm already a week behind.

this is like if you were watching a tsai ming-liang film and then suddenly halfway through it turned into an even more queer version of predator; absolutely bonkers and audacious filmmaking, the artform at its most free. weerasethakul paints a huge shamanistic landscape which not only includes the characters, story and environment, but also you, the viewer, are invited to participate in the magick circle of meaning, as if the film was a primordial campfire tale told to modern people, a tale which reinvigorates and clarifies feelings thought long lost or completely suppressed. reminded me so much of beau travail in its depiction of aggressive homosocial desire -- if man cannot love a man while remaining a man, he must become a beast.

Isn't this how love is supposed to be? It starts out with the exchange of mixtapes, which then goes on to the hands holding before ending up with the cuddling. But gradually, you learn to give in to your primal instinct. You bare your soul and offer your whole being, mind, body, flesh and spirit, to the other person, who just happens to be a nocturnal beast in the woods, knowing you won't come out of it alive. And between reality and fantasy, or the romantic daydream and the nightmare, I would always choose the latter.

The most maturely crafted film --
both structurally and thematically --
& interpersonally introspective work
of the twenty-first century, thus far:

the way that homosexual couples
are abused by their environment,
treated like literal animals by some...

and the way that this lack of acceptance,
and looming anxiety, sometimes leads to
separations and relationship deterioration
both inside & outside the queer community.

This film has the greatest ending of any movie that I've ever seen.
The last twenty minutes are as close to magical as you can get.

Love, for all its many forms, can be best summarized by how much one is willing to give and take, with the truest sacrifice comes with one’s own unraveling; both the self and the ego. To fully surrender one’s flesh, blood, and spirit is an act of complete submission, despite all the unknown variables accompanying love that’s uninhibited, primal, raw, and true.