Memoria
Apichatpong Weerasethakul is no stranger to the Films From the South festival crowd. Almost every movie he has made has been screened here, and in 2013 he won The Silver Mirror Honorary Award during his visit to the festival. He returns now with his first English-language film, which premiered and won the Jury Prize earlier this year at Cannes.
Tilda Swinton plays Jessica, a Scottish botanist who is visiting her sister in Bogotá. One day she suddenly hears a loud bang, which no one else seems to hear. The noise and its possible implications sends her out on an existential journey about how to relate to oneself as well as to others.
Swinton is a perfect match for the world Apichatpong Weerasethakul has created. Her characteristic and decidedly Western appearance adds an interesting layer to the movie as she moves through Colombia.
Memoria is a beautiful, lingering, and magical film. Weerasethakul is a master of magical realism and he manages to create great emotional depth out of seemingly nothing. Memoria is full of long tableaus where everything seems to move in slow motion, but it still manages to present as a mystery thriller with not a dull moment anywhere. Images, composition, lights, and other visual and narrative elements are weaved together in one seductive fabric, by a director who takes his slow cinema hypnosis much further than any peers.
Alexander Svanåsbakken & Lasse Skagen
Director
Apichatpong Weerasethakul (b. 1970) from Thailand is an award winning director and has won numerous prizes at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Blissfully Yours (2002) won Un Certain Regard, Tropical Malady (2004) got the juryprisen, while Uncle Boonmee Who Could Recall His Past Lives (2010) won the Palm D’or. In 1999 he created the production company Kick the Machine, which produces many of his own films as well as many other experimental and hybrid films.
This film is part of
Original title Memoria
Country Colombia, Thailand, France, Germany, Mexico, Qatar, England, China, Switzerland
Year 2021
Director Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Screenplay Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Cinematography Sayombhu Mukdeeprom
Producer Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Diana Bustamante, Simon Fields, Keith Griffiths, Charles de Meaux, Michael Weber, Julio Chavezmontes
Cast Tilda Swinton, Elkin Díaz, Jeanne Balibar
Production Company Kick the Machine, Burning Blue, Anna Sanders Films, The Match Factory, Piano, Xstream Pictures, iQIYI
Distribution Another World Entertainment
Runtime 2h 16m
Language English, Spanish
Subtitles English
Genre Drama
Format DCP
Age limit 12
Links IMDb
This film is in competition for the Audience Award.