In Apichatpong Weerasethakul's "Memoria," the Thai filmmaker shows how he's a practitioner of "slow cinema," which features many long takes and more silence than dialogue. His films rely on tone to generate feeling and emotion, and many of his features, which include the gay romance, "Tropical Malady," can put viewers in a trance-like state.
Set in Colombia, "Memoria" is firmly rooted in this style, as indicated by the stillness of the opening shot. Jessica (Tilda Swinton) hears a "bang" that she cannot understand. A slow pan in a parking lot shows the car alarms all go off creating a kind of musicality, but they shut off as mysteriously as they sounded. These moments of unexplained phenomena cause Jessica to wonder what is going on.
