From Thailand to Colombia: soundscapes of a violent past in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria (2021)
Loading...
Files
Published Version
Date
2025-10-23
Authors
Pérez-Osorio, Javier
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Film and Screen Media, University College Cork
Published Version
Abstract
Memoria (2021) is Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s first film made outside his native Thailand. The director’s geographical origin, the Colombian setting, and the extensive international funding make the film a singular transnational production. The global and local elements embedded in both the narrative and the production history open a space for critical examination of the geopolitical interconnections between the Global North and South, and between two diverse Global South countries—Thailand and Colombia. Considering the film as a crossroads of different discourses, I analyse its innovative approach to the Colombian context, seeing it as the result of a journey of several months made by the director through the country, a dynamism later echoed both by the mobility of the main character and by the singular model of exhibition chosen for the film. I propose that the perspective of a foreign auteur from a different Global South context offers a novel view on Colombian collective memory of historical violence. I further explore how this transnational blend is echoed in the film’s meticulous sound editing and meditative framing. Finally, I suggest how Memoria transposes local trauma into a broader idiom of “global” art cinema, reformulating the exchanges shaping Latin American international coproductions.
Description
Keywords
Apichatpong Weerasethakul , Colombian cinema , Latin American cinema , Sound , Global South
Citation
Pérez-Osorio, J. (2025) 'From Thailand to Colombia: soundscapes of a violent past in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria (2021)', Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 29–30, pp. 203–219. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.2930.11