MEMORIA directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Colombia/Thailand, 2021)
You don’t watch this movie for the story but for the experience. There is very little action and the slimmest of plots. Tilda Swinton describes her character, Jessica, as a ghost presence and the film as “a portrait of a woman in a predicament”.
A sound she hears causes insomnia and she strives to identify its cause and significance. She visits a sound engineer and tells him “It’s like a rumble from the core of the earth and then it shrinks.”
Ironically, despite being centred on the elusive quality of this mysterious noise, the movie is more concerned with the nature of stillness and silence. Other themes are excavation, preservation and inspiration. These all serve to provide constant reminders of time passing and the fading shadows of life.
Swinton brings a dignity and humanity to what might otherwise have become a pretentious exercise in existential navel gazing. She is on the same wavelength as Weerasethakul in being unconcerned with creating drama or giving answers to big questions.
The grandiose focus is on the mystery of being and finding connections, past or present, that give life a purpose. For over two hours, viewers are required to enter an audio-visual dream state conjured up by this immersive and magical movie.
