Memoria
Winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes, this Colombia-set mystery-drama is a work of true art.
It was Tropical Malady (2004) which gave its creator, the Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, an international reputation and caused him to be acclaimed by egghead critics. That was a viewpoint I was unable to share finding that film and its two successors far too obscure although I did somewhat modify my view on seeing 2015’s Cemetery of Splendour. While some of it was masterly, I still found it far too enigmatic in its second-half to be won over fully. Now comes Memoria which is hardly clearer in its meaning than its predecessors were. Nevertheless, this time around I find myself far more caught up in the experience offered. To say that I understand Memoria would be untruthful, but rather than becoming irritated I remained intrigued throughout.
The setting this time is not Thailand but Colombia and the central figure is Jessica Holland, a British botanist on a visit to that country. This role is taken by Tilda Swinton who quietly gives herself over to being a conduit, a character whom the viewer follows empathetically but not uncritically and who leads them on a journey which expresses Weerasethakul’s latest vision. At the very start Jessica is startled by hearing a loud thud which will subsequently recur but which is a sound seemingly heard by nobody else. No less striking is an early scene in which car alarms eerily join together like an oral and visual warning as disturbing as the notion that the thud heard by Jessica is a rumble from the core of the earth.
In the first half of the film Jessica seeks help from a sound engineer, Hernán (Juan Pablo Urrego), in order to pinpoint the exact sound and, indeed, if Swinton unobtrusively draws one in, so does the striking use of sound throughout the film (and not only those thuds). Jessica’s friendship with an archaeologist (Jeanne Balibar) brings in a scene involving a girl’s skull that is 6000 years old thus stressing our links with the ancient world and ecology is touched on too. Despite the film’s unhurried pace there is a forward momentum thus far even if it may seem to us that Jessica is focused on establishing the exact nature of the thuds as though they can be rationalised when she should instead be responding on another level by considering wider issues about the nature of our very existence. In the second half, Jessica leaves Bogotá and in the countryside encounters another Hernán (Elkin Diaz) and has long discussions with him which touch on both death and shared early memories.
Rather than clarifying the film’s ideas, these later scenes more often tend to add to its mysteries. Indeed, this is a film which doesn't explain itself but prefers to invite you to interpret it in whatever way you wish. I once described Weerasethakul as an acquired taste and that clearly continues to apply even if the impression left by this new work is on a fresh level. Memoria links us to human kind’s own past history and to the natural world in a poetic and imaginative way and in the process it feels like a film that takes us into unknown regions of cinema. Regardless of any lack in conveying its meaning, that is an achievement in itself.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Tilda Swinton, Elkin Diaz, Jeanne Balibar, Juan Pablo Urrego, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Agnes Brekke, Aída Morales, Constanza Gutierrez, Jerónimo Barón, Daniel Toro.
Dir Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Pro Diana Bustamante, Julio Chavezmontes, Charles de Meaux, Simon Field, Keith Griffiths, Michael Weber and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Screenplay Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Ph Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, Pro Des Angélica Perea Ed Lee Chatametikdol, Music César López, Costumes Catherine Rodriguez.
Kick The Machine Films/Anna Sanders Films/Burning Blue/The Match Factory/Bord Cadre Films/185 Films-Sovereign Film Distribution.
136 mins. Thailand/Colombia/France/Germany/Mexico/UK/Hong Kong/China/Taiwan/USA/Qatar/Switzerland/Japan/The Netherlands. 2021. US (New York) Rel: 26 December 2021. UK Rel: 14 January 2022. Cert. 12A.