Although his releases don’t exactly dominate your local Odeon, they nearly always win something at Cannes: the Un Certain Regard prize with Blissfully Yours the Grand Jury award with Tropical Malady and Memoria and the Palme d’Or with Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.ġ8 years ago, Swinton wrote to Weerasethakul, expressing her admiration for Tropical Malady.
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The 51-year-old director is both a niche name and also one of the biggest auteurs on the international film circuit. When I speak to Weerasethakul over Zoom, it’s in late October in 2021, and he’s at home in Phuket, in the south of Thailand.
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“It’s amazing to mix films with your dreams,” Weerasethakul says. So much so, the Thai director’s features and shorts screened overnight in 2016 at the Tate Modern from 10pm to 1:45pm the following day. Such is the soothing, somnolent rhythm of his oeuvre, Weerasethakul considers it a compliment if viewers doze off. Then again, I sometimes wondered if the cinemagoer in front of me was also napping. My first viewing was during the 2021 London Film Festival at Southbank’s Royal Festival Hall: more than 2,000 bodies collectively hypnotised in the dark, watching Swinton watching someone sleep. In America, Neon vow that Memoria will never be released for laptops or home entertainment in the UK, Sovereign’s rollout is exclusive to theatres. The “action set-piece”, shot as a lengthy take, would be arduous, if not unimaginable, in the hands of most directors, but under Weerasethakul’s guidance, it’s a magical, time-manipulating reminder of why the theatrical experience will always trump streaming.įilmmakers always insist they direct for the big screen, but Weerasethakul truly means it. Per Jessica’s request, he cradles himself next to a river, shuts his eyes, and eventually drifts off. Jessica, an orchidologist played by Swinton, encounters a fish scaler, Hernán, who claims he cannot dream. Apichatpong Weerasethakul | Tilda Swinton, Agnes Brekke, Elkin Diaz, Juan Pablo Urrego, Jeanne Balibar.Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria is an ocean of transcendent moments, my favourite of which is when Tilda Swinton observes a man falling asleep in real time. ★★★ĭrama | Cert: 12A | Sovereign Film Distribution | UK cinemas, 14th January 2022 | Dir. But, bear in mind that, despite those near-tortuous silences, you’ll find yourself strangely captivated. It’s a baffling puzzle of a film, and that’s part of its fascination. Swinton’s Jessica has a difficult job describing it to a sound technician and she has our sympathy. And that mysterious noise could be almost anything – the thud of doom, the menace of mortality. Perhaps the sense of isolation that surrounds Swinton’s character is the key to it all. On what? While its cinematography and sound cradle your attention, you’re never quite sure what it all means and the end result is a film which celebrates its obscurity and downright weirdness, but doesn’t give you too many pointers as to its meaning. With its pace and resultant dream like quality, Memoria feels very much like a meditation. And then there’s the noise itself, which has an almost cheeky habit of making its presence felt just when you least expect it or, to put in another way, when you’re in danger of nodding off.
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Who knew there were so many shades of green? It all helps move the film along – it doesn’t have a narrative to speak of – and keeps a tenuous hold on our attention. Especially beautiful are the gloriously luscious tropical surroundings.
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While the snail-like pace has its downside, it does allow us the luxury of taking time to absorb the film, both visually – the tiniest, most intricate of details which may, or may not, be clues to the origin of the mysterious sound – and aurally, with its apparent peace full of delicate sounds, some so subtle that they almost blend into the background. Even more strangely, it seems exclusive to her because, when she hears it, nobody else bats an eyelid. Not the proverbial bump, but something loud and disturbing and, even though she gives it little thought initially, it returns repeatedly, in a variety of settings. Tilda Swinton is Jessica, an expat who is suddenly woken up in the middle of the night by a strange noise. He also returns with that familiar contemplative pacing which at times comes perilously close to being snooze-worthy in what is billed as his first English language film – in truth a mixture of Spanish and English – set in Colombia. No Palme D’Or this time, but the Jury Prize instead to take home. Last year, he returned to the scene of his triumph, this time with Memoria.
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He didn’t rest on his laurels over the next decade, with around 20 varied projects – shorts, TV movies and full length features. Back in 2010, Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul was the toast of Cannes, with Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives scooping the Palme D’Or.