In ‘Memoria,’ Tilda Swinton Plays a Spiritual Adventuress Seeking the Source of a Mysterious Sound

There are some movies you may feel you have to see twice to understand. There are also some movies that become more puzzling, not less, the more often you watch them. Memoria, the latest from Thai master Apichatpong Weerasethakul, starring Tilda Swinton as a Scottish woman temporarily displaced in the jungles of Colombia, may be one of the latter—though that’s a recommendation, not a deterrent. Anyone who claims to fully grasp every element of Weerasethakul’s movies—like the haunted reverie Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, or Tropical Malady, a lush dream romance—is blowing smoke, and should be avoided. His pictures weave a spell that lingers somewhere in the space between brain and spirit, like a song you heard before you were born. They’re so vividly filmed that it’s easy to recall and describe their imagery, but once you…