‘Memoria’ Review: Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Latest Film is Very, Very, Loud
Memoria’s ephemeral nature makes it a one-of-a-kind cinematic experience, even if the movie itself feels incomplete, through a series of very loud noises.
Memoria will never be released on streaming, nor on any physical media. Some critics are lucky enough to have a physical copy of the film if they received Neon’s end-of-the-year FYC screener boxset, but those will be the only copies of the movie made for home viewing. Instead, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s latest movie will only screen in theatres forever, as part of a “never-ending tour” where it will be shown in select theatres for one week at a time, and then move on to the next batch. I’m certainly not opposed to that kind of release strategy, especially when the film feels very ephemeral in nature, but it certainly screams “elitist” during a global pandemic when accessibility should trump any authorial vision, especially when many streaming services open the floodgates for access to good art during multiple COVID-related lockdowns.
Having said this, seeing Memoria in a movie theater is definitely an experience unlike any other and was tailor-made for complete engulfment and designed to be contemplated inside a dark room, alongside strangers who are equally as bemused as you are. If you can see it while it is playing near you for a week, it’s one to consider, because if you don’t, you will never see the movie again for the rest of your life…think about that. Of course, if you don’t like contemplative films, it may seem like one of the most boring movies in the world, but if Weerasethakul is your jam or any movie that peels back on the central question of what it means to be human and be surrounded by things we don’t necessarily understand, it should be at the top of your watchlist.
What makes Memoria so unique is how Weerasethakul approaches sound design. To say that Memoria is a loud movie feels like the understatement of the year (there have been social media posts in which cinemas are warning audiences that the sound is loud at the start of the movie, even if the entire thing is loud for many different reasons). The movie opens with a BRRRRRRRRRRRRM, which awakens our protagonist, Jessica (Tilda Swinton), who will look for the source of that sound (to which we will hear and jump multiple times during the film) and think about its meaning for the duration of the movie. But “The Sound” isn’t only the loudest part of the movie. Weerasethakul fills every ounce of the frame with pronounced ambient noises (especially rain and wind), the shrill of car honks, and even manages to throw in a jazz session at the film’s hour mark. All of these elements transform Memoria into a purely contemplative exercise, where our ears will act as the film’s primary guide, and not our eyes.
Don’t get me wrong, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s cinematography looks incredible, but it is not the main point of focus of the movie. Memoria isn’t a film to passively watch but to feel, particularly with your ears. Without the film’s intricate sound design, the movie wouldn’t have been as transfixing as it is, since it doesn’t rely on the plot or its main character to pull us into the movie. When the first BRRRRRRRRRRRRM is heard, the audience is already on edge, not knowing what they’ve just heard, or what it is.
There’s an almost twenty-minute sequence at a recording studio, where Jessica is trying to explain to a sound mixer what the BRRRRRM sounds like. The entire scene contains the best use of sound I’ve seen all year; we know when the sound will appear, and yet we jump every single time we hear it. The anticipation of hearing it makes the tension feel way more palpable than it is until the sound creeps up again. Describing the entire sequence here would strip all the fun of the film’s theatrical experience, which is something that needs to be heard to be believed. It’s just a shame that many will never see the movie because of this, as if made available physically (or digitally), the scene could be studied in film school for decades to come.
As Jessica, Tilda Swinton magnifies the screen and gives one of the best performances of her late-stage career. As much as Weerasethakul wants to focus on the sound, this is Swinton’s film, and she fully takes advantage of every single ounce of the frame. The last thirty minutes or so are completely devastating, and I don’t believe it would’ve been as effective were it not for Swinton being in complete control of her emotions and frightened, as we are, by the apparition of “The Sound.” We don’t necessarily know where it comes from, or what triggers it, but we do know it’s something to fear, always giving us (and Swinton) a sentiment of unease.
All of these elements make Memoria an engrossing experience to see on the big screen. It’s unfortunate that the film’s final few moments (where Weerasethakul reveals the sound) feel like a complete cop-out, and has no emotional resonance, or meaning, to what the movie was progressively building up towards. Everything about its ending feels like it belongs in a completely different movie, and makes the emotions more distant, and empty, even if Weerasethakul wants the movie to be about feelings, and for the audience to feel every ounce of them. But if we’re distant from the main protagonist, and even more once it ends, how could we possibly feel what she’s feeling at a complete level? This is the element that irks me the most whenever I see a Weerasethakul film: he lays out all sorts of interesting ideas and themes, only for him to barely explore them, or stop near the end and leave us feeling unsatisfied as if the culmination of our contemplative moment on screen came with little to no reward.
But the concept of Memoria is so entrancing and unique that it warrants a trip to the cinema just for the aural experience alone. Rarely has a film’s soundtrack been so rich, especially when it’s almost entirely comprised of noise, with Tilda Swinton giving the movie a much-needed emotional core, even if Weerasethakul doesn’t seem interested in building one. If the movie magically arrives near you (in a few weeks or years, depending on the roadshow’s structure), and you love to think, don’t miss it, because it will be the last time you will ever watch it…