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Memoria

Play trailer 1:05 Poster for Memoria PG Now Playing 2h 16m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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90% Tomatometer 138 Reviews 42% Popcornmeter 100+ Ratings
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.
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Memoria

What to Know

Critics Consensus

Memoria finds writer-director Apichatpong Weerasethakul branching out into English-language filmmaking without forsaking any of his own lyrical cinematic vocabulary.

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Critics Reviews

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Adam Nayman The Ringer One sequence, set by a riverside outside of Bogotá, depicts the thin line between life and death with heart-stopping clarity, making us aware of the smallest physical movements that prove more mesmerizing and rewarding than the typical spectacle... Jul 9, 2022 Full Review Chandler Levack Globe and Mail It’s a beautiful work of cinematic concentration that’s purely Apichatpong. May 9, 2022 Full Review Mark Feeney Boston Globe You get caught up in it. You don’t ask why. You don’t wonder what’s going on, what will happen next. You just accept it. You trust Weerasethakul. Until about the 100-minute mark (the runtime is 136 minutes), he justifies that trust. Rated: 2.5/4 Apr 26, 2022 Full Review Yasser Medina Cinefilia Weerasethakul uses his aesthetics with a certain subtlety to accentuate, between sounds and visual poetry, the link with nature that seems to have been lost among the memories of solitary beings alienated by the urban climate. [Full review in Spanish] Rated: 7/10 Sep 13, 2024 Full Review William Stottor Loud and Clear Reviews Memoria is director Apichatpong Weerasethakul at his best and most daring, with its hypnotic tone and startlingly refreshing conclusion. Rated: 5/5 Jul 18, 2024 Full Review Greg Carlson Vague Visages Memoria entices with its aural preoccupations, but the film is rich with many other ideas and explorations. Jul 28, 2023 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Adam W Wow, not to everyone's taste, but weirdly entrancing. Breaks all the rules about pacing and lack of coherence but I can say I enjoyed it, if only for it's difference to anything I can remember seeing. For me the only thing I can say I really didn't like was the cause of the boom, won't say anything more for risk of spoiling how you see the film. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 12/06/24 Full Review 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 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 out of 5 stars 11/29/23 Full Review Maksim A Not for everyone, very hard to watch 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 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 out of 5 stars 10/16/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Memoria

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Movie Info

Synopsis 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.
Director
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Producer
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Diana Bustamante, Simon Field, Keith Griffiths, Charles de Meaux, Michael Weber, Julio Chavezmontes
Screenwriter
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Distributor
NEON
Production Co
Rediance, Piano, Sovereign Films, Kick the Machine, New Story, Field of Vision, Bord Cadre Films, Louverture Films, Match Factory Productions, Burning Production, iQIYI Pictures, ZDF/Arte, September Films, Doha Film Institute, Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation, X stream Pictures, Illumination Films, 185 Films, Titan Creative Entertainment, Anna Sanders Films
Rating
PG (Some Thematic Elements|Brief Language)
Genre
Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Dec 26, 2021, Limited
Rerelease Date (Theaters)
Apr 1, 2022
Box Office (Gross USA)
$52.7K
Runtime
2h 16m
Aspect Ratio
Flat (1.85:1)