'Memoria' is an exquisite existential detective story

WHAT to make of the slow and spellbinding film Memoria? Like all the feature films of Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul, it is a puzzle film that needs to be patiently deciphered - and perhaps not even after one viewing. There are clues abound, but they are either so subtle or so fully mystifying, it would take a second or third viewing to piece them together.

Memoria marks Apichatpong's first English and Spanish-language film after 20 years of making only Thai-language features. He's nabbed a Hollywood actress to star in it, namely the reigning queen of serious cinema Tilda Swinton, who has a knack for lending poise and plausibility to some of the world's most enigmatic films.

And unlike other Asian arthouse helmers who've tried to break into English-language cinema (such as Park Chan-wook, Wong Kar Wai and Tran Anh Hung) with limited success, Apichatpong has emerged unequivocally triumphant. Memoria was not only the Jury Prize winner at the 74th Cannes Film Festival, it was voted as Film Of The Year 2021 by the London Film Critics Circle.

Swinton plays Jessica, a Scottish orchidologist living in Colombia, who wakes up one night to a loud thump - or as she describes it, "a rumble from the core of the earth". For days afterwards, she continues to hear the sound, when others around her hear nothing. After medical specialists fail to treat her, she is convinced she is going mad .

She finally goes into the jungles of Colombia to find answers, and here the film takes the viewer into a confounding magical realist space that touches on history, memory, trauma, death and extra-terrestrial life. Is Jessica a victim of unspoken trauma? Or is she merely hallucinating? Has she uncovered new forms of consciousness? Or has she simply gone mad?

Apichatpong takes plenty of chances with the film by allowing it to move at gentle, meditative pace. There is a scene where Jessica sees a jazz band practicing, so she stops and enjoys the music for a long time - and, in the same way, Memoria feels like jazz too with its seemingly free and improvisatory structure and rhythms.

Memoria, as the title suggests, is about remembering. As a subplot unfolds with the discovery of ancient human remains at an archeological site, Jessica engages in her own mental excavation. And just as those remains are pieced together bone by bone, so must Jessica - and the audience - crack the mystery of her malady clue by clue.

There's a certain pleasure in being mystified by just everything one sees on screen for over 2 hours. By the end of it, one may not have all the answers - but one would have had a kind of out-of-body experience similar to Jessica's.

Memoria is playing at The Projector.