Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2021)

[swo17]

As a sidenote, isn't sitting quietly in a socially distanced theater one of the safest indoor activities one can participate in while still being part of a crowd?

[hearthesilence]

As a sidenote, isn't sitting quietly in a socially distanced theater one of the safest indoor activities one can participate in while still being part of a crowd?

FWIW, I've been extra careful about COVID, but the NYFF was essentially my first attempt back at regular moviegoing. By the end I felt perfectly safe, even with packed houses, because:

1) vaccines were required
2) masks were required once you were inside and except for when people were talking into mics on-stage, they asked that you wear them properly AND keep them on. NO food, NO drinks, so no exceptions were made. Every single person I saw was good about it until some vain asshat on closing night kept taking his off to take selfies, and since his masked friend wasn't doing anything, staff came up to him and said "You NEED to keep that mask on. NOW."

Less than 60% of Manhattan is still fully vaccinated (though Queens is at 90% (!) far more than the other boroughs) but except Staten Island generally people have been good here about doing the minimum.

[therewillbeblus]

The independent theatres here are similarly requiring proof of double vaccination, though (for now) the expectation is to keep a mask on unless you're consuming food/drinks (as we've discussed in the covid effects on entertainment industry thread, the theatres need to sell their concessions to stay afloat given profit margins for that vs. tickets). I feel safe in that setting, but I have people in my life who are hypervigilant and avoiding all indoor activities, so it does become tricky. I certainly don't blame anyone for avoiding these spaces, though going two years without a Fall movie season has been enough for me.

[therewillbeblus]

Against all odds, Memoria is the first Weerasethakul film I can outright state I adored, no doubt in part due to very specific circumstances that surrounded my screening, but sometimes a filmmaker whose lauded reputation confounds me (i.e. Hou Hsiao-Hsien) will hit all the right notes and inexplicably destroy my soul with one film out of their canon (The Puppetmaster, in HHH's case). I’m not always a fan of the branded “slow” cinema either, but somehow every decision around shot length and sound implantation was perfect here. I found Memoria a profound, often very funny meditation on our fascination with enigmas surrounding mortality, life, and time. It's an abstract tone poem about our elusive relationship to history, and presents unconventional, perhaps perverse questions about the limitations of our agency, which may be more elastic than our self-imposed and cultural barriers convince us we can accomplish through celestial harmonic exploration.

This film champions interest and curiosity, while also affirming our drives to locate knowledge. There are freezers that stop time so that flowers don’t age, a corporeal control of life and death, yet these are not shamed but celebrated; just as all "human inventions" presented in the film (excavation sites, machinery, exhibits, sound design, music, etc.) coexist side by side with natural vegetation, as spiritual siblings, together not separate.

SpoilerShow

As mentioned, this is a very cross-cultural film, appropriately merging a character coming from an imperialist country with more holistic, spiritual, and collectivist communities. Jessica writes a poem that ends with, “the air grasps at its fading shadow,” after which her sister asks “and?” -pining for palpable meaning. “That’s it” Swinton replies, with a sense of acceptance- or maybe 'comprehension' that enigmas exist without our ability to tap into finite knowledge, even if the air grasping at its shadow hints at all life striving for comfort in the implausibly discernible.

Of course Swinton herself oscillates between her comfort level within the nebulous. She asks for pills to help her anxious distress, is disturbed by her sanity when a man she has befriended may not exist at all, and wants to find out more about this sound that prompts a dedicated existential quest. She wonders if she’s “going crazy.” For Weerasethakul, is this perceived insanity a symptom of accepting enigmas and transcending rigid ideas of western civilizations? Jessica's meeting with Hernán during the second half of the film reignites her search in a novel direction. Hernán poses a unique perspective, that 'experience' has negative consequences for pure memory. This is not an argument from the director, but the statement does seem to signify the uncomfortable truth that it’s impossible to have “all” - to access limitless, omniscient experience. Jessica’s impotence over memory-retrieval plagues her, while Hernán appears at peace, but Jessica is not perturbed in the conventional sense. She's not hysterical or visibly shaken, and her struggles synchronize with a sense of tranquility that there’s also no need (a desire, yes) to ‘know’. Still, there is a valid rumination traversed regarding anthropological energy yet to be summoned from the past to indicate meaning we seek.

She craves, and acts upon the desire to observe life with acute curiosity throughout the film, and the final act only doubles down on this willingness, transforming it into mystical ability. The showstopping scene occurs when Jessica recounts a “new” memory that is really Hernán’s- their fusion becoming an ethereal intimacy. Can we unlock powers we didn’t know we had access to, if we step back and pay attention? Does our ultrasensory potential hinge on opening our cognitive and spiritual perceptiveness to new ideas, spaces, and cultures? Are these literal shared experiences possible through an alien enhanced fourth dimension of empathy, and if so, does Swinton need to be an actual alien being or is Hernán too an example of a corporeal superhero, in the eyes of the narrowminded Western world?

After we discover the sound as an alien ship, is Hernán going crazy at the end? Do Jessica's symptoms of never sleeping or only having a memory of being a baby (impossible psychologically for humans) confirm her alien status? None of these questions are demanding to be answered. In fact, the film seems to be self-reflexively positioning its audience to search for tangible objective significance when the film has demonstrated already that it is about this very process of working through the discomfort with mystery, and methodically moves us into this space of confrontation, and finally acceptance, for the unknown. All I know for certain is the self-reflexive in-joke of Swinton’s casting, often labeled an 'alien'-esque actress. And that I loved this transcendent mood piece.

On a personal note, I arrived at the theatre today coming directly from a funeral for someone I worked with several years ago when they were a child. The inexplicable nature of death, and suicide, and the unknowns of that person's struggles, are challenging to sit with- but this film validated that experience of having difficulty with these insoluble mysteries, and also offered magical hope that perhaps we can truly access another person on an intimate level, in profound, intense ways that are singular to that union. I know that this person had that effect on me, and I know I did with her- and maybe that relationship's energy didn't contain fantastical elements, but it kinda did when I think about it. I can't explain certain things that I don't care to share here, but I can say with confidence that the intimate connection around safety and trust yielded outcomes that defied all the scientific research out there about how we behave psychologically in crisis. If that isn't a God-sized, unexplainable energy, I don't know what is.

It’s a shame NEON is sticking to their release model, as this is a film begging to be viewed over and over, and I’d argue that from a thematic angle, it’s the kind of film that will make the world a better place for its therapeutic value as a coping strategy with unbearable forms of intangibility we face on a constant basis. Just as people in recovery need to go to meetings regularly to stay sane, sober, and spiritually-fit, some of us need to consume art to work the muscles of our empathy, and be affirmed by an outside force that reminds us that it's okay to be uncomfortable with enigmas, existential dilemmas, and dysphoric emotions. I’d like to be able to watch this again as a ritual following the next funeral I attend. The film gave me immense peace today, granting me a serenity I would not have found on my own, and it’s a cinematic crime to deprive people of the opportunity to utilize art to find acceptance when it’s out there, locked in a vault somewhere, intangible itself, out of reach. C’mon NEON, don’t be like Disney.

In the meantime, I hope everyone decides to go see this beautiful film if/when it comes to a theatre near you. I'm sorry if NEON's release model bothers you. It bothers me too. And no two people will get the same thing out of this film, but that's the gift of cinema like this. It's just so very special, incomparable with other art when it strikes the right chord, and maybe it'll destroy and then cradle one of your souls too.

[swo17]

Where can one find the touring schedule for this film?

[therewillbeblus]

Where can one find the touring schedule for this film?

I saw it at the Boston film festival, and the folks in charge seemed to be pretty clueless as to a touring schedule, going so far as to announce early in the festival "who knows when Memoria will come to Boston, if at all," after mentioning educated guesses about the other films' release dates... so I assume if the people who have a strong working relationship with NEON around acquiring a print, as well as several other films of theirs for this festival (more than any other studio partnered) don't know, it's probably a big question mark right now

[Never Cursed]

To the great disdain of NEON's marketing department, copies of this are now circulating on backchannels, presumably uploaded by one of the kind souls gifted a lavish physical screener of the film by NEON. I like that the sticker collage on the box features one of the girls from Assassination Nation, though

[therewillbeblus]

Wow, that packaging is a stunning piece of creative workshop! NEON h8ers take note

It'll be very sad if people wind up pirating this as a result of their inane distribution model tho, and I hope someone over there making these decisions pays attention to the numbers and applies a lesson into action from it all

[therewillbeblus]

To the great disdain of NEON's marketing department, copies of this are now circulating on backchannels

Were they taken down already? I haven't been able to find the film in any of the usual places, public or private

[Never Cursed]

I only saw a screenshot of it, but it was on a private tracker

[lzx]

Neon will open the film in Chicago on Friday before it leaves New York after Saturday, so the "One Screen at a Time" thing is already a lie. Still no word on where it will go after this.

[swo17]

Nothing says "singular experience" like not having the slightest clue when you'll be able to have said experience

[brundlefly]

What if Film Distribution Company, only Improv Everywhere?

[teddyleevin]

I saw it in NYC on the final screening of the night on Sunday Dec 26 (maybe 20 - 30 people; pretty empty, but I wanted to catch it early in the run and not miss out and take advantage of holiday weekend quietude); really loved it and echo all of therewillbeblu's comments (or rather, I wish I could echo, but they were speaking about it far more eloquently and vividly than I could, but I second them wholeheartedly)! Though there was, at all times, a second narrative running through my head: "So why this release model for this film?" Because of the release model, I felt at all times a need to keep thinking of what justifies it and from where did this idea originate? How much of this is Neon and how much of it is AW? If not this film, would this have been sprung on one of their other titles. I certainly didn't feel like it surpassed the other AW films I've seen with regard to my own needs of seeing films in theatres (i.e, that I am much happier at home where I can go right from dreaming during a movie to dreaming in my actual bed with no subway ride in between and no strangers' interruptions). It was unfair to the film for it to have to live up to the nature of its distribution which made the experience not about the film but about the experience itself. I wish I could have turned that part of my brain off, I would have been able to relax into the film much more. It's hard not to go into this film thinking, "What will this film offer that demands this experience?" So, I'm afraid to say that it does seem like a gimmick.

And a clumsy one at that, for it was treated with no reverence at the IFC center. The security staff (who, granted, wanted to close up after the final screening of the evening), came in quite loud at the end of the screening (before the images stopped being projected) to say "Allright you have to go home now!" If you're gonna do a screening gimmick for this film, and it's a filmmaker like AW who indulges in cinematic trances and meditation, then surely the theatre in each town that you trust with this property would be told to help preserve the specialness of this particular theme park attraction. All of that serenity I felt (as therewillbeblus did) was shaken out of me by the staff of the theatre itself! Very bad planning.

And not to mention a couple of young lads, college age I expect, who clearly didn't take the film too seriously and, during the credits, grabbed a pair of directors' chairs used for Q&As, brought them up on the stage, and started doing a comedy routine: "Anybody got any questions?? hehehe" (i.e. "I'm going to lampshade what I see as this film's obtuseness by making a gag about the futility of banal audience questions," but without any self-awareness. Far be it from me to be a snob, but I wanted to stay there with the credits as I usually do, and ruminate and marinate and meditate but these brats wanted to do a comedy bit that said "Wow, you're pretentious for enjoying whatever the fuck we just watched." All I could say was "Why are you here? What are you doing?" in a mumbled, serene tone (this didn't knock me out 100% like the security guard did; this is because authority is a worse nightmare than children). Thankfully, the security team (later to be a villain) quickly swooped in and told them to fuck off so the esoteric among the audience could enjoy seeing how many companies were involved in the film's production.

After this and the couple constantly talking behind me on the most boring date ever at Eyes Wide Shut at Nitehawk with the film constantly out of focus, I think I've learned my lesson and am going to go back to never going to the movies.

[Never Cursed]

This now has a public (modified) touring schedule, one which appropriately begins on April 1. Thank you once again NEON for scheduling these dates such that I will not be able to see it for two months following its real theatrical release

EDIT: A second scan of the touring schedule helpfully indicates that the film will play in Alaska before Los Angeles. Brilliant!

[DarkImbecile]

Albuquerque in the first weekend! Excellent

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

What's been the consensus of the touring idea? It still strikes me as incredibly dumb. I understand trying to create the sense of being an art work going from town to town, but you're also assuming all these specific venues have adequate sound and projection capabilities. With a museum or gallery, you can be highly specific about this, but part of watching a movie in a theater is reliant so much on the infrastructure of each individual theater. With it now on the web for months, what's the point of doing this? It seems like a model designed to please no one.

[soundchaser]

playing in front of only one solitary audience at any given time

Five cities on April 1st.

[dekadetia]

With a museum or gallery, you can be highly specific about this, but part of watching a movie in a theater is reliant so much on the infrastructure of each individual theater.

Exactly. When this finally arrives in my city in June, it's playing at one of the smallest, most antiquated venues here. Which is typical for indie fare, but doesn't work so well when you're boasting about preserving the nondisplacability of the theatrical experience.

[therewillbeblus]

Going off that point, the Coolidge Corner theatre is great and the obvious choice for the screening, but if I recall correctly (unless something has changed) the Somerville theatre has the optimal Dolby sound of any theatre in the Boston area. I remember the program director going over the specifics on how and why they were one of only a handful of theatres in the country who could replicate the intended sound design of 2001: A Space Odyssey before a 70mm screening due to this sound system, using jargon I didn't understand, but still. I've never been so shaken during a screening in my life due to the sound design, so regardless of hyperbole, seems like it would've been the preferable choice if any of that is true

[JMULL222]

This is not the only superior element of the Somerville's system, but what you're recalling re: 70mm is that they have five distinct channels behind the screen itself and thus are among the few houses left able to exhibit 6-track 70mm soundtracks in their original front-loaded mix. I doubt that'll come into play for Memoria, but it's cool and so I thought worth mentioning in response.

[therewillbeblus]

This is not the only superior element of the Somerville's system, but what you're recalling re: 70mm is that they have five distinct channels behind the screen itself and thus are among the few houses left able to exhibit 6-track 70mm soundtracks in their original front-loaded mix. I doubt that'll come into play for Memoria, but it's cool and so I thought worth mentioning in response.

Yes, thanks JMULL222, very cool!

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

playing in front of only one solitary audience at any given time

Five cities on April 1st.

They already rendered this BS when it opened in Chicago on the last day of the NYC run.

Also, fun fact, this opened in Thailand last week on 16 screens and expands to 21 this weekend. AFAICT Neon is the only distributor anywhere in the world doing this roadshow silliness. I'm sure there are plenty of countries where this only got a single festival screening or never played theatrically at all, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. But even if Apichatpong wants the movie to be seen only in theaters and Neon was the only distributor willing to accept that condition, the roadshow model makes no sense to me now that they've dropped the "one audience at a time" thing.

[Omensetter]

It's a fantastic film, the best of last year, but I'm ready to move on. I would love to see it again in the placidity of my own space, but I'll have to wait until misplaced pretentions are buried, and this receives a home-video release. NEON already bungled it (and to a far lesser extent, The Worst Person in the World); everything after reeks of saving-face.

[beamish14]

What’s even more odd about this release is that all of the venues it screened at are 35mm equipped. Did Neon make ANY prints? I know they did for Titane