Remember (Atom Egoyan, 2015)

[flyonthewall2983]

Atom Egoyan's Remember

[willoneill]

Atom Egoyan's REMEMBER (I keep holding out hope for him)

Not a 2016 film; it's been out for a couple of months now. It's on my personal worst of 2015 list (i.e. If you're holding out hope, keep holding).

[warren oates]

Atom Egoyan's REMEMBER (I keep holding out hope for him)

Not a 2016 film; it's been out for a couple of months now. It's on my personal worst of 2015 list (i.e. If you're holding out hope, keep holding).

It's a 2016 release in the U.S. and it's easily Egoyan's best film since Chloe or even further back depending on how you figure it. I've read some of the critics' reviews and your dismissal and can't quite feel that we've seen the same movie. This is finally the good version of exactly the sort of elevated genre picture Egoyan has been telling himself he was working on for the past decade or so, thriller material that in other hands would have been just as obvious and plodding as this one is wrongly accused of being. This is not a masterpiece on par with Egoyan's best work but it is far better than its reputation. I kind of regret not seeing it in a theater.

[knives]

I recently formally introduced myself to the world of Atom Egoyan with Remember which is probably the most perverse film I've seen since Killer Joe and one which will not leave my head. In time it seemed just a fun way to put this mode of Holocaust cinema to rest, but the more I think about it the more what Egoyan seems to accomplish appears like a great movie. Just on the surface the Dean Norris scene changes everything. It is so creepy and disturbing. The whole plays as Tarantino style wish fulfillment in a James Toback skin. Most of the success is thanks to Plummer who gives an amazing performance, somewhere close to his best, though the film's understanding of the fight between pacifism and consolation also aids deeply in making this compelling in the moment. The handling of dementia as well is very good even if I wouldn't say it is as perfectly grafted onto the genre ideas as the Holocaust stuff. It is also hilarious to have Martin Landau basically play off of his role in Mission: Impossible in the other seat this time.

SpoilerShow

The ending though is truly what lifts this up as a great picture. I can't stop playing out in my head what this means for the whole and how that adds themes to the film which can only be appreciated in retrospect. Now admittedly the denouement is too cute by half which reduces some of the perversity in Plummer shooting himself, but at least the final shot of his Sound of Music get up plays into these themes quite well while throwing shade onto that movie. This ending imparts a lot of things, but there are two which particularly amuse me. The first is rather simple and aided by that picture. In short the twist should have been obvious because Plummer is not an ethnic Jew. That's like having Rod Steiger play a run away slave. Of course face acting until the last few decades was acceptable and the distinction between middle eastern peoples and Europeans is less obvious than with African originating peoples, but if one level of face acting of a hegemonic actor on a non-hegemonic character is absurd why is that not so with the other? Personally I disagree, but it at least provides a very interesting meta-textual thing to consider (though that also leaves a question on why it is acceptable for him to play a German). I think this is supported as a deliberate concern in film by the casting of Landau, a Jew, as the only actual Jewish Holocaust survivor. That the second target is emphasized as placed in the camp for homosexuality also seems to emphasize the uniqueness of Landau and the specificity of being a Jewish survivor over some other target.

The second thing, which I suspect more people will be on board for, is how the ending offers the film as a transformative experience not unlike Lynch or Rivette's exercises with actors. Even with his memory wiped Zev is still arguably Otto. Not being able to remember that it is a lie is merely the start of the transformation. Max's adventure is necessary for him to become Zev, as the credits acknowledge him as, through the extraordinary empathy that each sad encounter with each Rudy forces onto him. Now, before I can continue, it is important to acknowledge that the dementia aspect clogs up this view of the film since, obviously, he's forgotten each encounter. I want to say that this is a transformation of the audience through hindsight, but that whiffs of bullshit. The best answer I can provide is that the four Rudys allow for a simulation of the Holocaust experience making Zev's memories true in a fashion even if it is a post hoc truth. The first Rudy is a mere meeting with the forces that would later persecute, the second in a powerful scene provides the brotherhood among unlikely bedfellows that pain and death provided in the camps, the third is of course the torture, humiliation, and persecution along ultimately with survival, while the ending is the uncomfortable catharsis revenge was supposed to bring. That's an imperfect summary unfortunately.

Going back to the audience thing I do think even that interpretation is dependent on the audience being conflicted over how we observe the Holocaust as this sad little thing that we can experience safely for 90 minutes. Is Otto's experience to becoming Zev any more trite than our own in empathizing with other imaginary survivors?