The very first static shot in this film begins with the early hours of the morning, dim light goes through a curtain, revealing the shadow of a woman in stillness. Memoria (2021), which won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, is Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s first feature produced outside of Thailand. Yet, it continues to engage the thematic concerns that define his body of work—memory, time, history, and dreamscapes. With its undramatic structure and simmering, meditative visual rhythm, the film resists immediate interpretation, enveloping the viewer in an atmosphere whose direction and meaning remain elusive. As Flanagan observes:“The images in Apichatpong's fiction films are often prone to mystery and illusion, but retain a sense of material aliveness that verifies a beauty and strangeness that is resistant to the immediacy of narrative containment.” (Flanagan, 2012, p. 27)
Apichatpong has cultivated a singular cinematic aesthetic that clearly does not aim to deliver narrative clarity or direct explanation. In mainstream film culture, directors are often expected to guide viewers toward understanding—to inform them of what they are about to see, or what is being revealed through the film. Yet Apichatpong’s images evade this directive logic. His films resist immediate narrative decoding, displacing the viewer from a passive recipient of meaning to the central locus of experience. One could argue that in his work, the viewer becomes the true protagonist—the film unfolds not for the viewer, but within them.
As Toni Papay points out, “Apichatpong this means that there is no single, definitive mode of life we could ascribe to him as the ‘auteur’. Rather, his films create moods or tonalities that infuse our lived reality and can inflect our lines of life.” (Papay, 2017, p. 20)
There is a distinct sensorial preference in Apichatpong’s work: emotional and perceptual intensities are often compressed into long, contemplative takes. As time dilates, the viewer’s attention gradually shifts—from narrative progression to atmosphere, detail, bodily perception, and self-awareness. This visual minimalism, however, does not equate to sensory silence. Instead, it sets the stage for a profound sonic intrusion that displaces the visual as the primary site of meaning and visual stillness is soon disrupted by an abrupt, low-frequency metallic sound—a sonic rupture with no identifiable source. It destabilizes not only the image but also the viewer’s sensory equilibrium. Although the visual field remains motionless, the viewing experience is reconfigured by sound. Physiological responses—heightened pulse, tension, startle—emerge, pulling the body into the cinematic field and repositioning it as the primary site of affective reception.
In Memoria, sound is no longer relegated to a supporting role in narrative construction; it becomes a sensory and cognitive trigger. This strategy compels the viewer to consider how sound resonates within the body, especially in a context where visual momentum is nearly suspended. In these moments, sound activates dormant perceptual layers and invokes somatic memory. This essay will examine how Memoria constructs a unique mode of affective narration through its use of long takes and sound design, drawing upon theories of slow cinema and affect and sense. Slow cinema, as theorized by scholars such as Çağlayan, functions not merely as a formal aesthetic but as a practice of resistance against the accelerated rhythms of contemporary media. Within Apichatpong’s work, this slowness is not just stylistic but profoundly ethical and political. Meanwhile, theories of affect and embodiment offer conceptual tools to understand how sound operates on the level of bodily response and unconscious experience.
Temporal Aesthetics of Slow Cinema
According to Emre Çağlayan, the temporality of slow cinema is not merely about a singular deceleration of rhythm, but rather emerges from a triadic perceptual structure—nostalgia, absurdism, and boredom (2020, p14). These three experiential modes intersect throughout Memoria, immersing the viewer in a temporal drift where sensory perception, memory, and existence entangle in a submerged journey of contemplation. In what follows, I will examine how these three layers unfold through specific scenes in the film.
Nostalgia in Memoria reshapes the viewer’s perception of history and present reality, responding to a contemporary world where time feels increasingly fragmented and accelerated. Jessica’s investigation into a strange sound that only she can hear might be read as the film’s external narrative arc, but more profoundly, it is a movement toward the submerged layers of Colombia’s collective trauma, historical violence, and archaeological consciousness. For instance, in the scene from 40:50 to 42:30, we witness a quiet conversation between Jessica and an archaeologist about a young woman’s ancient skull that bears a ritualistic perforation. The scene, lasting 1 minute and 40 seconds, contains only two cuts, alternating between two static camera setups, embodying the unhurried rhythm that defines slow cinema. Rather than dramatizing the past, the film allows it to seep into the present like a ghost—haunting the space and the dialogue. Jessica’s act of touching the hole—a wound—is symbolic: she transforms history into a material, tactile experience, not merely a narrated account, but one that is felt through the body.
When viewed through the lens of absurdism, Memoria reveals one of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s most distinctive aesthetic concerns: characters’ fundamental estrangement from a world that defies rational understanding. Jessica’s search for a sound only she can hear unfolds as a paradox—both deeply personal and strangely cosmic. The sound cannot be verified, nor explained. Her journey seems purposeful, yet continuously collapses into further ambiguity. The film refuses to offer resolution or explanation. In one moment, Jessica connects with a sound engineer named Hernan, who later disappears inexplicably, only to be seemingly re-encountered in the countryside in the form of another man with the same name. Early in the film, she claims to speak little Spanish, yet by the final act she is conversing fluently. These disjunctions aren’t oversights—they are part of the film’s philosophical construction. Through extended takes, meditative shots of landscapes and rooms, and sounds that remain unlocatable, Memoria invites the audience to abandon the expectation of narrative coherence. Instead, we are drawn into a state of openness and intuitive perception, where meaning becomes suspended and the experience of not knowing becomes the very subject of the film.
Boredom in Memoria is not merely a lack of action or plot development; rather, it invites the viewer into a non-functional mode of spectatorship—an experience that reorients our relationship with time, perception, and existence itself. As Quaranta (2020) notes, drawing on Heidegger’s existential philosophy, if we remain open and attentive to the experience of boredom—allowing ourselves to linger in a state of “being left empty” or “held in suspension”—we may come to a renewed understanding of cinema and the act of viewing itself. This mode of perception stands in stark contrast to the stimulus-driven logic of mainstream entertainment, demanding instead that viewers be “in the mood for boredom.” For Heidegger, such a state is not passive but is, in fact, a pathway toward a deeper apprehension of Dasein, or the being of human existence. A striking example of this occurs when Jessica asks the villager Hernan to demonstrate what it looks like to fall asleep. After Hernan gently lies down, a medium static shot frames his upper body as he stares blankly, his eyes open and unmoving, suggesting a liminal state between sleep and death. This moment stretches on for over a minute, followed by another fixed shot of Jessica’s boots beside him. The only perceptible motion comes from the occasional buzzing insect or the soft rustle of leaves stirred by the wind. In Memoria, such prolonged gazes not only create a sense of temporal suspension but also confront the viewer with the weight of watching and the density of space itself. In relinquishing the impulse to seek narrative progression or meaning, boredom becomes a mode of being—an experiential unfolding of presence and perceptual depth.
The field of slow cinema, above all, attempts to achieve a resonance of time, body or place beyond the dominant conventions of classical or intensified continuity style and dramatic narrativity. (Flanagan, 2021, p.34) Through the above analysis of the three levels—nostalgia, absurdism, and boredom—we can gain a more comprehensive understanding of how Memoria embodies the perceptual and narrative innovations initiated by slow cinema. In this film, however, memory is no longer merely a secondary element of the image, nor does it consistently serve the advancement of the narrative. Instead, it functions as a perceptual catalyst, capable of stimulating bodily memory and evoking latent emotions. Next, I will further explore how this film, through its heterogeneous use of sound, draws the viewer’s body into the image, creating a scene of resonance between perception and memory.
The Relationship Between Sound and Embodiment
If slowness reconfigures our relation to visual rhythm, then sound, as Don Ihde’s phenomenology of listening shows, transforms the very ground of perceptual engagement. Although Memoria may not follow a clear narrative structure, it is difficult—perhaps even impossible—to ignore how a sudden, thunderous noise seems to set both the story and the viewer’s senses in motion. The bang Jessica hears is not something she reflects on or decodes afterwards; rather, it happens to her all at once, before she can think about it. If sound truly comes before understanding, as some theorists argue, then it is the body—not the mind—that listens first. Within the world of slow cinema, where visual time stretches and story often pauses, sound finds a different role. It no longer exists simply to serve plot. Instead, it opens up another way of experiencing: one based on sensation rather than explanation.
Jessica’s encounter with the mysterious noise is sudden, disorienting, and deeply physical. It jolts her awake in the middle of the night, yet the film offers no visible source. The scene remains visually quiet and still, but sound alone fills the space—and our awareness. As viewers, we are drawn into this moment of rupture. We don’t watch her make sense of the sound but we feel its weight and confusion with her.
Don Ihde’s philosophy of listening helps clarify this type of experience. He writes: “Phenomenologically I do not merely hear with my ears, I hear with my whole body. … The bass notes reverberate in my stomach, and even my feet ‘hear’ the sound of the auditory orgy” (2007, p. 44). For Ihde, listening is not just about ears or language—it begins in the body. This is echoed in the way Jessica reacts: before she speaks, before she even moves, her whole body is already responding. He also mentions, “Sound permeates and penetrates my bodily being. … Listening begins by being bodily global in its effects” (2007, p. 45). In Memoria, the bang doesn’t just interrupt a night’s sleep or her daily life. However, the sense of reality that grounds Jessica’s experience is suddenly destabilised by the sound, arriving without warning or explanation.. It’s not something she hears and then processes. It’s something that enters her—physically, emotionally—and reshapes how she experiences the world.
Later in the film, Jessica tries to describe this sound to Hernan, a sound engineer. Her words are fragmented and metaphorical: “Like a big ball of concrete… that falls into a metal well… surrounded by seawater… bang… and then it shrinks…” This attempt isn’t about precision. She isn’t aiming to define the sound but to point toward its effect—its presence. Here, language begins to falter. And that’s the point. The sound cannot be translated neatly into words. It exceeds what language can hold.
This is where Ihde’s broader view of listening becomes important. He writes: “The things of the world sound in their own way. Things, others, the gods, each have their voices to which we may listen... For within auditory experience I find myself already within language. It is already there” (2007, p. 116). In this framework, sound doesn’t just support language—it is a kind of language in itself, one that exists through rhythm, tone, and vibration. Jessica’s inability to describe the bang isn’t a failure. It’s a reminder that meaning isn’t always verbal. Sometimes, we live within sounds before we name them. Moreover, this scene not only makes the difficulty of sound reproduction immediately perceptible, but also invites a reflection on how many sounds we habitually overlook—those we deem unimportant, insignificant, or irrelevant to narrative progression. Even though the body serves as the primary site of perception, it does not grant us full access to reality. What we consciously attend to is often shaped by selective attention, habit, or cinematic convention. As Michel Chion observes, “The codes of theater, television, and cinema have created very strong conventions of realism, determined by a concern for the rendering more than for the literal truth” (Chion, 2019, p. 107). In other words, what is heard and registered as ‘real’ is less a matter of accurate representation than of aesthetic or narrative expectation. Jessica’s inability to re-articulate the sound she hears thus reveals not only the limitations of sonic realism, but also the limits of our own bodily attunement to the sensory world.
Memoria suggests that sound, particularly when it remains unlocated and unresolved, can become a form of knowledge. It doesn’t explain—it affects. It shapes how Jessica moves through the world, and it invites the viewer to feel, not just to follow. By centering sound as something we inhabit, the film blurs the boundary between listening and being. It shows how sound can speak—quietly but forcefully—before words ever arrive.
Conclusion
“Through listening, through sound, one connects with the surface of the consciousness, thus dissolving the visible boundaries; the connection starts to exist on the level of time and memory. And this is where Memoria starts.” (Mankowski, 2021)
The film invites us into a space where listening becomes a form of being, and where perception precedes comprehension. By engaging the slowness of time and the immediacy of bodily response, Apichatpong creates an experience that resists closure. The sound that Jessica hears cannot be traced, explained, or even fully remembered—but it is felt, shared, and inhabited. In this way, Memoria asks us not to understand, but to listen. Not to interpret, but to resonate.
While this paper offers a focused analysis of sound and embodiment in Memoria, it is limited by its primary emphasis on phenomenological theory and affect. Further research could engage with more culturally situated readings, especially considering the film’s Colombian setting and postcolonial context. Moreover, this essay foregrounds a sensory approach, yet a closer look at the politics of silence, language, and historical violence in the film’s soundscape could further enrich our understanding of its ethical and geopolitical resonance.
References
Ihde, D. (2007) Listening and Voice: Phenomenologies of Sound. 2nd edn. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Bordeleau, É., Pape, T., Rose-Antoinette, R., Szymański, A. and Manning, E. (eds.), 2017. Nocturnal fabulations: ecology, vitality and opacity in the cinema of Apichatpong Weerasethakul. [ebook] Open Humanities Press. Available at: https://openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/nocturnal-fabulations/ [Accessed 4 May 2025].
Flanagan, M., 2012. 'Slow Cinema': Temporality and Style in Contemporary Art and Experimental Film. PhD. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. Available at: https://www.proquest.com/docview/1034383482 [Accessed 4 May 2025].
Chion, M. and Gorbman, C. (2019) Audio-vision : sound on screen. Second edition. New York: Columbia University Press.
Çağlayan, E. (2018) Poetics of slow cinema : nostalgia, absurdism, boredom. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96872-8.
Quaranta, C. (2020) ‘A Cinema of Boredom: Heidegger, Cinematic Time and Spectatorship’, Film-philosophy, 24(1), pp. 1–21. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3366/film.2020.0126.
Mankowski, L., 2022. How it sounds to remember: The sonic work of Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr. [online] Notebook on Cities and Culture, 4 April. Available at: https://mubi.com/en/notebook/posts/how-it-sounds-to-remember-the-sonic-work-of-akritchalerm-kalayanamitr[Accessed 8 May 2025
