. Times Resonate. Sound and Listening in Memoria, by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Abstract

This essay examines Memoria (2021), directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, to explore how the film constructs a perceptual regime that departs from conventional modes of representation. Drawing on a framework that brings together temporality, affect, and Latin America as a space of resonance, the study develops three analytical axes: the construction of a non-linear temporality shaped by landscape, silence, and the emergence of an inexplicable sound that inscribes memory onto the body; the configuration of Latin America not as an exoticized or merely represented territory, but as a vibratory surface where memories, affects, and multiple temporalities converge; and the displacement of exoticism toward an experience that resists narrative and representational codification. The analysis argues that, in Memoria, listening functions as the aesthetic principle that organizes the cinematic experience, displacing the primacy of vision and reframing memory as a process of material and affective resonance. From this perspective, the film articulates a poetics of listening that transforms Latin American territory into a sensorial space where diverse temporalities, memories, and experiences intersect.