Film as meditation: Memoria reflects on connection and empathy without getting sidetracked ★★★★★

As if a concrete ball falls into a metal pit surrounded by seawater. That’s how plant scientist Jessica describes the loud, deep thumps that no one else seems to hear. Or more concisely: a sound from the center of the earth. She wakes up like in the opening scene of Memories the morning light shines through the curtains. She hears the bangs in the street at night. Several times in a row during a dinner in a restaurant. Is she going on? Is there more to it?

MemoriesAwarded the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival last year, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s new film is, so we can assume the latter with due certainty. The Thai filmmaker and mystic, who works with films like Tropical Malady (2004), Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) and Cemetery of Splendor (2015) invariably draws delightfully elusive and mysterious worlds, does not surprise in the context of his own work. At Weerasethakul, dreams creep into the waking world and the living converse with the dead. Sometimes a person turns into an animal – or vice versa.

New in Memories is the location: Weerasethakul no longer felt free under the yoke of the Thai junta and moved to Colombia, one of the most important home ports of magical realism and therefore understandably as a new home. And for the first time, its protagonist is an internationally renowned actress. Tilda Swinton has again opted for a director with a highly idiosyncratic vision, after successful collaborations with Jim Jarmusch, Lynne Ramsay, Luca Guadagnino and many others.

Weerasethakul very deftly turns Swinton’s Jessica into the most rational person possible. Above all, she tries to understand and knocks on the door of a sound engineer to reconstruct the sound waves from her thumps as carefully as possible. Swinton’s appearance fits seamlessly into this universe: just see her masterfully insecure, questionable walk.

In the meantime, Weerasethakul films fragments of apparently isolated events with great attention. Challenges you to figure out any underlying connections. An archaeologist friend examines a recently unearthed 6,000-year-old skeleton with a hole in its skull, and tells Jessica about a ritual that freed people from evil spirits. Someone says how master surrealist Salvador Dalí understood the beauty of this world.

Memories works towards the moment, about halfway through the film, when Jessica abandons her attempts to rationalize reality and moves from the capital Bogotá to the Amazon. The mystical layer that Weerasethakul so carefully draped over everyday reality until then comes to full fruition here. Something that can be called a reflection on connection and empathy arises, but the film steers clear of the silky connotations that usually characterize pleas of connection.

Film as meditation. Who participates in the slow-motion tempo and the sleepwalking logic of Memoriessees nothing less than sorcery.