Memoria

Ever since being startled by a loud ‘bang’ at daybreak, Jessica (Tilda Swinton) is unable to sleep. In Bogotá to visit her sister, she befriends Agnes (Jeanne Balibar), an archaeologist studying human remains discovered within a tunnel under construction. Jessica travels to see Agnes at the excavation site. In a small town nearby, she encounters a fish scaler, Hernan (Elkin Diaz). They share memories by the river. As the day comes to a close, Jessica is awakened to a sense of clarity.

“The English-language debut - about an expat attuned to strange frequencies in Colombia - by the Thai artist and filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul more than matches his past mystic odysseys. He offers us his own kind of exaltation and his own abolition of gravity; he fixes you with his unbroken gaze and his meaning seems to float out of the screen – and you float out of your cinema seat to meet it. In a calmly realist, non-mystic movie language, this director really can convince you that the living and the dead, the past and the present, the terrestrial and the other, do exist side by side. Memoria is a beautiful and mysterious movie, slow cinema that decelerates your heartbeat.” - The Guardian