A bond forged in astronaut training turns into something the crew never trained for in "Tropic," a 2023 French-American science-fiction feature from director Edouard Salier.
What is Tropic about?
Twin brothers have spent years preparing side by side for a life among the stars, their identities so intertwined that the mission almost seems designed for two people who function as one. That closeness is tested when one twin returns from a mission carrying a strange residue picked up in space, a contamination that neither the medical team nor the brothers themselves fully understand at first. As physical symptoms and stranger changes surface, the film turns the twins' once-total closeness into a source of dread, following how an organization built on protocol and control responds when the anomaly resists every explanation on hand. "Tropic" plays out as a slow, body-conscious thriller rather than a spectacle-driven one, staying close to the twins' shared perspective throughout.
About the cast
Pablo Cobo and Louis Peres play the twin astronauts at the center of the story, with Marta Nieto, Marvin Dubart, and Alane Delhaye in supporting roles across the film's small, tightly wound ensemble.
Context & significance
A France-United States co-production, "Tropic" belongs to a lineage of contamination-driven science fiction that treats the human body as the primary site of horror rather than the void outside it. Director Edouard Salier, working from a visual-arts background, favors clinical, controlled compositions that let unease build gradually instead of relying on sudden shocks, and the film's genre is listed simply as science fiction rather than reaching for action or horror trappings.
Watching Tropic on Ktime
"Tropic" is available on K-Time with a free account login, and Farsi-speaking viewers can choose either the Persian dub or Persian subtitles, both offered on the platform so the film's slow-building tension reads clearly in either language.