'Memoria' Trailer: Tilda Swinton Stars In Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Surreal New Cannes Provocation

“As a kid, I was drawn to jungles, animals, and mountains,” Palme D’or winning director Apichatpong Weerasethakul says in the press notes to his surreal new Cannes Film Festival provocation, “Memoria.” A film that Neon Films itself calls, “bewildering,” though that’s not that strange if you know the work of this Thai master. “During the ’70s, I grew up reading novels about hunters looking for treasures from lost civilizations. However, Thailand does not possess ancient empires full of gold, nor headhunter tribes, nor anacondas.”

“Forty years later, I am still drawn to such landscapes but they are covered now with layers of other stories,” he continues. “I am attracted to the history of Latin America as if it was a missing part of my youth. I have come to Colombia to collect expressions and memories, not the Amazonian gold. I am deeply in debt to the individuals I have met in various cities, from psychologists, archaeologists, engineers, activists, to junk collectors.”

Known for the Palme-winning “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives,” “Syndromes and a Century” “Tropical Malady,” and more, Weerasethakul’s latest, “Memoria” stars Tilda Swinton in a film that’s been seemingly gestating for years (she’s a huge fan and wanted to work with him). All of this auteur’s films are mysterious, surreal, strange, etc. and “Memoria” looks just as dreamily enigmatic and eerie.

Here’s the official synopsis:

From the extraordinary mind of Palme D’or winning director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and starring Academy Award winner Tilda Swinton, comes a bewildering drama about a Scottish woman, who, after hearing a loud ‘bang’ at daybreak, begins experiencing a mysterious sensory syndrome while traversing the jungles of Colombia.