Memoria begins with a bang. A literal one. A short, sharp explosion that wakes up Jessica (Tilda Swinton) and starts haunting her eardrums. It’s a heavyweight punch of a sound that rocks the stomach, and at any point, it's ready to go off again. If that sounds like standard jump-scare tactics to you, don’t worry — this is an Apichatpong Weerasethakul film, so it’s anything but standard.
The latest from the indefinable Thai experimental filmmaker, whose feature works include the Palme d’Or-winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (which is about exactly what the title suggests), as well as many shorts and gallery installations, is a fascinating mystery. The plot makes for an access-point into a looser, atmospheric piece, focused more on human interactions than narrative resolutions. A standout scene involving Swinton’s Jessica and an audio engineer (Juan Pablo Urrego) attempting to recreate the mystery sound evokes sonic puzzles Blow Out and The Conversation, the precision of the work and the machinations of studio-editing given satisfying, patient and adoring screen time. A later scene, in which a man (Elkin Díaz) cleans and prepares fish by a forest river, is equally intriguing, as the rhythms of the work, the jungle and the river harmonise, transforming the film into a beguiling trance.
The haze Memoria builds around Jessica's growing insomnia is predominantly hypnotising, if occasionally languid. More heightened moments of mystery, including characters who may transport in time and close encounters with strange aircraft, are curious, but spell-breaking. It’s at its best and most haunting during the everyday. Ominous art galleries, skulking dogs and sterile mortuaries make the film swell with unease; this sense only occasionally punctured by intimate and captivating human interactions, as the outsider Jessica gets closer to the heart of Colombia, and its people.