Memoria
Apichatpong Weerasethakul / TH, CO, FR, DE, MX, 2021 / 136 min.
Tilda Swinton plays an orchid expert who hears a mysterious loud noise, then tries to solve the mystery of its origin. For the first time, Apichatpong Weerasethakul filmed outside of Thailand – in Colombia – for this enchanting masterpiece, winner of the Jury Prize in Cannes.
Jessica (Tilda Swinton) is a Scottish orchid specialist who is awakened from her sleep in Bolivia by a loud bang. The sound only she seems to hear is eerily beautiful and seems part of the surrounding landscape, whether that be the busy streets of Bogotá or the green mountains where she visits an archaeologist. Is the sound real or is it in her head?
In an attempt to solve the mystery, she consults a sound specialist and moves to the countryside, where she meets a man who, just like the hero in Borges’ tale ‘Funes the Memorious’, says he never forgets anything.
Weerasethakul, who won the 2010 Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival with his film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, once again wrought a breathtaking, poetic study of sound, time and memory. Film Fest Ghent called it ‘a whispering visual poem, captured using long shots, which envelops you like a slowly rising mist, holding you firm, then entering through every pore in your body, straight to your heart, leaving you enchanted’.
Pre-film
Before Memoria, you’ll see January Stories (cinema version) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a short film (with Tilda Swinton) where memories fade into the low resolution of a pocket camera, or Bloeiende bloemen en plantenbewegingen (J.C. Mol, 1932, 5’) with a new film score by Thijs Havens (Eye). An early Dutch scientific film in which we see flowers blooming in fast motion. . Tilda Swinton hand-picked a short film, either from her rich oeuvre or from Eye’s collection, to precede all feature films.
This is part of
Special screenings
Details
Director
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Production year
2021
Country
TH, CO, FR, DE, MX
Original title
Memoria
Length
136 min.
Language
Spanish, English
Subtitles
ENG
Format
DCP
Part of
Tilda Swinton
This autumn, Eye presents Tilda Swinton – Ongoing, an exclusive exhibition dedicated to the celebrated Scottish performer, artist, and fashion icon. This unique and personal exhibition centres on Swinton’s creative collaborations.
Why in Eye
Apichatpong and I dreamed up this film over seventeen years of friendship and collusion - short film fragments, programming cinema events together. We settled on Colombia, land of Marquez, to place our outsider, Jessica, with the mystery of the sound in her head, and we followed our own noses into the hills. A true meditation of a film: an invitation to our eyes and ears to be ever more open.
Tilda Swinton
Actor and Performer
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