Every once in a while, someone will ask me: “What was the film about?” and I –quite honestly- will not be able to answer the question. Such is the case with Memoria, which I’d call a trip to Ennuiville, except that “trip” implies something happened. You may never find a film in which less happens than Memoria. I’m serious. Memoria had three minutes of something happening stretched into 136 minutes. You may think I’m kidding. I am not. If anything, the three minutes is exaggerated on the long side.
As I cannot tell you the plot, I can tell what I saw. Tilda Swinton was on screen, and she kept being on screen. When the film opens, she’s in bed. And then we hear a loud noise like a “BANG.” She hears it, too … and does nothing. The character and the camera stay in bed. Complacent cinematography is a recurring theme in Memoria. At one point in the film, a character may or may not have died. The camera keeps showing him, just in case. After what seem
s like a healthy five minutes, the camera cuts to something else not happening … and then it goes back to the guy who may or may not be dead and continues to linger.
Memoria is set in set in South America. I was tired that evening and I was afraid that the subtitles would be taxing. They were completely unnecessary [read: unused] for the first twenty minutes of film. As the “BANG”s continued in sporadic fashion, I kept hoping the movie would pick up the pace to one that, you know, a mystery might have. No such luck.
Writer/director Apichatpong Weerasethakul – if you say his name five times into a mirror, Candyman appears, slaps you, and leaves – seemed to give three instructions to his cast:
1. Take your time.
2. Seriously, take.your.time. There’s no need to rush anything.
3. Try to convey emotion without acting.
I want to stress the third because Memoria will show you that there’s actually a difference between not acting and doing nothing. It’s a subtle difference, but it exists.
Memoria wasn’t sharp, intuitive, or lively. I might wish to call it “blissful” and perhaps serene enough for a decent nap, but the BANGs keep one from that assessment. By the time the mystery is solved, it doesn’t make any sense – for half a film, we’re led to believe that the BANGs are completely inside Tilda’s head, but the solution says otherwise – which means that preceding scenes in which Tilda clearly heard the sound, but no one else around her reacted, were just wrong. I’d give this film no stars, but I don’t think there was evil intent or agenda here. Trust me when I say, however, Memoria deserved zero stars. I have no idea what film the critics who lauded Memoria saw, but they didn’t see this.
Memoria earned not one clap
The director I wanted to slap
The mysterious “BANG”
Within my head rang
And ruined a perfectly good nap
Not Rated, 136 Minutes
Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Writer: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Genre: Drama? Sci-fi? Comedy?
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: A being with no sense of time
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “Well that’s two hours I’ll never get back”
