Memoria

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Remi C This was the worst movie I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I wouldn’t even wish a viewing of this on my worst enemy. Please don’t put yourself through the torture. Nothing made sense and I’ll never get those 2 hours back. Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 08/01/24 Full Review Jason R Well, it's got Tilda Swinton in it - it's going to be weird isn't it? Maybe watchable, maybe not - but probably not dull. Oh, how wrong I was! To start with, it's very quiet - we're 8 minutes in before we get any dialogue. And from that point on, things just get weirder. Tilda plays Jessica, a Scottish woman who for no obvious reason lives in Colombia and one day she's woken up by a weird "womph" sound which it transpires no-one else can hear. Which puzzles her and so she tries to find out what's going on - and hilarity results! Well, no it doesn't. Just oddness. And often very dull oddness. For example, we spend 15+ minutes with Jessica and some dude at a mixing desk playing different versions of the "womph" sound, whilst they switch between English and Spanish for no obvious reason. At another point Jessica asks a man to show her how he goes to sleep - so he does. And we spend the next five minutes watching her sit beside him in silence as he sleeps. Wtf?!? And I'm going to stick to my no spoilers rule, but you're really not going to believe what causes the "womph" noise. Part of me is surprised they actually resolved the "mystery" - it feels like just the sort of film that would take great delight in not telling you, but the resolution is most strange indeed. Tilda is in peak-Tilda form here - lots of stillness in awkward poses and gazing into the distance. If you like that then there's plenty of that here for you to "enjoy". There aren't really any other actors that make a huge impact on the film but I am going to mention Elkin Diaz as the elder Hernan Bedoya (the fish scaler) and Juan Pablo Urrego as the younger Hernan Bedoya (the sound engineer) if only to mention that they are in no way related and there's absolutely no reason to give them the same name. It's quite a beautiful film which makes you think there's a load in it to think about - but unfortunately when you think about it, you realise that none of it makes any sense at all. It's very much a fan of holding the shot for longer than anyone would feel is necessary - I found myself thinking "get a move on" very frequently. It's also a very auditory-focused film - impressively so, but very oddly because sometimes the sounds we're hearing are nothing to do with the scene that's playing out in front of us. And it really didn't help that I picked the wrong subtitles to start with but the film is so weird that it took me quite some time to realise. A lot of this film looked very good - I reckon if you played it at about quadruple speed it would be a lot more bearable. I don't think I can say I hated it because it was often very beautiful to look at, but boy was it a struggle to get through. I mean a massive, massive struggle - both because of its slowness and its utter, utter bizarreness. Part of me wants to recommend it just so you can experience what I did - you'd hate me but you'd also go "ah yes - I see what you mean". If you want to watch it then it's available to stream on BFIPlayer and to rent in the all the usual places. But seriously, I wouldn't... Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 11/29/23 Full Review Maksim A Not for everyone, very hard to watch Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 11/11/23 Full Review David S Surreal, beautiful, meditative... Its a movie that one really should see in a cinema, because the amazing photo in the movie. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 11/10/23 Full Review Vil H Memoria is a movie you wish you would forget. I tried very hard to dig it, empathise with it, see the director's perspective, to no avail. It's a completely oddball flick. Tedious. Borderline pointless. And pretentious. The takeaway is: two hours of your life that will disappear in the ether for no apparent reason. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 10/16/23 Full Review Roberto S 136 minutes of random scenes with excruciatingly (and unnecesary) long static and silent shots that end up going nowhere, some pseudo-poetic dialogue and a wasted opportunity for Tilda Swinton to show her well-known capabilities as an actress since her character is in a perennial confused state with a catatonic expression on her face and barely saying a word. Most of the scenes stretch far, far, far too long, e.g. a guy sitting in a chair working in a sound console FOR MORE THAN 10 MINUTES, a 2-plus minutes of Swinton waking up in her darkened room and many more moments like that. There's no discernible story beyond the protagonist hearing a random "boom" sound every now and then. Make no mistake, this is not a "contemplative" movie but an utterly pretentious and soporific one (the rave reviews from many critics just reveal their own pretentiousness as well) that panders to self-important film festivals. If you're looking for a truly meditative cinematic experience watch Bergman's The Silence, Kore-eda's Maborosi, DeBlois' Heima or any other sincere work from a director who really want to create an immersive story instead of selling themselves as a "profound and artistic visionary". As a bonus, I leave you with the most hilarious excerpts of some pompous reviews from people who, unlike me, have achieved a heightened state of artistic and philosophic enlightenment: - "A spiritual and sensorial journey that explores the cosmic bond between humans and nature, past and present, and life and death". - "An untransferable experience that is also shared simultaneously, much like the epiphany of a memory that we remember as our own." - ""What was that sound?” is another way of asking: What do I know about the material world and how it behaves?" - "Memoria is a psychedelically inspired allegory, an impressionistic inquiry into human existence, including ignorance and insight, suffering and enlightenment." Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 09/15/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Memoria

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