Remember

source: Remember

Zev Guttman (Christopher Plummer) suffers from dementia and memory problems. His wife Ruth died a week before. He walks out of the nursing home on a mission to hunt down Auschwitz Blockführer Otto Wallisch who is hiding under the name Rudy Kurlander. His son Charles (Henry Czerny) tries to track him down. Zev is helped by his wheelchair-bound partner Max Rosenbaum (Martin Landau) from the nursing home. They are both Auschwitz survivors who lost their families. There are 4 recorded Rudy Kurlanders who emigrated after the war. After two wrong Rudys, Zev finds the son of the third Rudy, John Kurlander (Dean Norris), who is a neo-Nazi. It's a little slow going in the first half. It could be something else especially with Plummer acting the hell out of this. I thought it could be a misunderstanding or an illusion of his destroyed mind. I would have preferred a delusional quest. The first two Rudys are problematic for me because anyone sneaking into the country with false identity would have false proof to back him up. The movie gets much better with the arrival of Dean Norris. I would extend his part of the movie and eliminate the first two Rudys. Some may be uncomfortable with the use of Auschwitz as a device for a mystery thriller. I don't dismiss that complaint especially for people with personal connections. There are no doubt some problems with this but there are also intriguing sections.

An old man with dementia hunts down a Nazi in "Remember," from 2015. If ever a movie could knock you right out of your socks, this is it. Max Rosenbaum (Martin Landau) is, besides being in a wheelchair, too ill to travel. He has his friend Zev (Christopher Plummer) who goes in and out of dementia do the leg work. He has worked with the Simon Wiesenthal Institute for years hunting Nazis and bringing them to justice. There's one more that he says he wants, and he tells Zev that this is the man who killed both their families at Auschwitz. There are four people with this name in the U.S. -- one of them is the man who must die. Max writes a detailed letter so that Zev will know what to do every step of the way. He arranges for hotels and cabs -- he basically through the letter talks him through the whole trip. I wondered throughout the film if Zev would find this man, and when he did, if he would kill him. What happened in this film is mind- boggling. Dean Norris of Breaking Bad fame has an excellent role, and it's a stunning scene between he and Christopher Plummer - nerve- shattering. Christopher Plummer has long been a great actor, so it's no surprise that he excels here. The pain on his face when he can't remember, when he calls out for his late wife, he completely inhabits this part. Martin Landau does a marvelous job as Max, the man whose determination drives this trip. Jurgen Prochnow also gives a wonderful performance. I can't recommend this film too highly. It will blow you away.

Atom Egoyan may never reach the heights of Exotica or The Sweet Hereafter again, but he's definitely made some solid films since then. Here's another one. I don't even remember hearing about it when it came out (late last year in Canada and March in the US), but it's a pretty good little revenge thriller. Think Memento but with a very old Holocaust survivor out looking for long hidden Nazis. Christopher Plummer plays Zev, who is spurred on by fellow Holocaust survivor and roommate Martin Landau to search for and kill a rumored Auschwitz worker. 90 years old, Plummer has lost a lot of his memory, but Landau remembers and guides him. Dean Norris also co-stars as the son of that possible Nazi. It's a small thriller (obviously not super thrilling given the ages of those involved), but it's good with a fine central performance. Definitely worth a look.

In the first shot of Atom Egoyan's Remember, Zev awakens to a memory of his dead wife. In the last scene he awakens to a completely suppressed reality. He is not the Jewish survivor we (and he) think he is but himself a Nazi concentration camp killer. The closing scene redefines the revenge plot. Instead of a Jew avenging his family, the Nazi hiding behind a Jewish identity kills his evil comrade and then himself — doubly completing his mission. Here the hunter as well as the hunted exposes his suppressed identity. Zev proves a "wolf" in sheep's clothing, pretending to be his erstwhile prey. For the bulk of the film Zev personifies the struggle never to forget the horrors of the Holocaust and to sustain the commitment to bring the evil to justice and to honour the memory of the dead. As his memory drifts in and out, Zev needs his friend Max's letter of detailed instruction to keep him on track. Ironically, a sweet little American blonde (total it Aryan) little girl reads the letter aloud to him, to recover his purpose. The pathos of an old man losing his wife, then his memory, supports the larger theme of historical remembrance. With the conclusion, the theme shifts from the importance of remembering the Holocaust to the importance of remembering one's own identity, one's own responsibility for that horror. Ultimately the film's subject goes beyond the loss of memory, as portrayed in Zev's dementia, to the willful forgetting of the past, especially one's own. The title, which we don't get until the end, enjoins us to remember what we are as well as the enormity of what has happened. More broadly, we all have to remember the evil of which we may well be capable. The dark side of human nature is not just in others. Once we've seen the twist we can find its earlier preparation. Zev plays Wagner more comfortably than he plays the Jewish-born Mendelssohn and he admits to loving Wagner. "How can you hate music?" he asks. Well, for starters, when that music has been used to orchestrate the genocide of your people. A Jew would feel that. Zev also shows a surprising efficiency with his Glock, killing an attacking German shepherd (i.e., dog) and then dispatching the modern Nazi — a state trooper, aptly enough — with two effective shots, one to the heart, one to the head. These reflexes confirm the conversion of avenging Jew to hidden Nazi. Zev's reflex fear of German shepherds may cohere with his Jewish pose, but it's also true to the old man's fragility and the fear that makes him hate shouting and wet his pants on the trooper's couch. Any old man fears tyranny, regardless of race, religion, colour or creed. As exposing the truth is healthy, the cab that brings Zev to his climactic exposure is Merck — the German (of course) pharmaceutical company. If the ultimate revelations traumatize the two Nazi officers' unsuspecting American families, they still get off more lightly than their respective fathers' Auschwitz victims. Max, immobile and constantly on his oxygen, turns out to be the master planner and angel of justice. It turns out he recognized Zev as the brutal Nazi and exploited his dementia to send him and his old mate to justice. The trooper reminds us that antisemitism remains a powerful force in the world, in North America and certainly across Europe. A Nazi rural cop points to the institutionalized bigotry even in Obama's America. Egoyan, of course, is not Jewish. But he is an Armenian acutely aware of the massacre of his people and its obscuring in time and by the aggressors' twisting of history. The historic tragedy that the Jews and Armenians have shared lies at the heart of Remember. We all need to both remember the history and reject the lies that would replace it.

I can not believe how well this film was made. Not one minute of wasted time. From the opening scene until the end, I was riveted. One of the better movies I have seen in a long time. I will say that you need to watch with out distractions. My wife was taken away for a bit and did not get the full effect of the plot line. I fully recommend this movie. The acting was great! The story line was magnificent. I must admit that I don't know why this movie did not get even more accolades. Well done.

As soon as I heard the premise of this film I knew the ending, so I am surprised at how so many - all, in fact - of the reviewers here somehow didn't see it coming. Essentially, it's a geriatric take on the great Christopher Nolan film Memento with added dementia - 'Demento', if you will - that is very nicely acted but unfortunately I don't think there really was any possible way to make this particular story hang together in a believable manner. Also the politics are too childishly simplistic - annoyingly so - for one to come away with any rewarding sense of depth or meaning, of anything new being added to the same stale old wartime propaganda tropes of the past 70 years, and the pace too slow and unnecessarily drawn out to satisfy.

"Remember" marks a return to form of sorts for acclaimed director Atom Egoyan, whose last few movies have been mired in a haze of mediocre uncertainty and even irrelevance, something that you would not associate at all with him. My favourite Atom Egoyan movie will always be "The Sweet Hereafter". "Exotica" was perhaps a signature film, but "The Sweet Hereafter" remains, for me at least, a true marker of this talent and vision. But "Remember" ranks up there with his other films, assembled into a solid body of work, generally speaking. "Remember" is a fascinating movie about living with the ghosts of the past, the scores we have not yet settled and the debts we have not yet paid at the end of our lives. Worst, all these unsettling things that we barely remember or not at all. The movie is anchored by an enthralling and mesmerizing performance courtesy of Christopher Plummer, who in his 80's still shows why he is as good as he is, and that even at that age he is at, he runs circles around most of today's movie stars in terms of acting quality. This is a small, out of the way, low-budget movie, with a sad but important story to tell. So if you have the time and opportunity to see it I would advise you to do so. One of the best movies this year, and definitely one of the best leading actor performances of the year, at the hands of Christopher Plummer!

"Remember" (2015 release from Canada; 96 min.) brings the story of Zev (played by Christopher Plummer). As the movie opens, Holocaust survivor Zev, also suffering from mild dementia, laments the passing of his wife. After the funeral, Zev, with the help of Max, another Holocaust survivor (played by Martin Landau), leaves/escapes from the senior home, vowing to find the German officer at Auschwitz who was responsible for murdering their families. To tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out. Couple of comments: this is the latest from Canadian director Atom Egoyan, yes! he of "Exotica" and "The Sweet Hereafter" from 20 years ago. This time, Egoyan dives into a thriller-type movie with some various serious undercurrents, namely to what extent Holocaust survivors can or should take justice into their own hands. all the while realizing that time is running out for the few remaining survivors, both on the Jewish and the German sides. The movie is plot-heavy, and all I will say is that the packed theater gasped hard on more than one occasion. Christopher Plummer, now a crisp 86 years young, is nothing short of amazing in this film. He appears in virtually every frame of the movie, and literally carries this movie on his shoulders. I recently saw this as the opening movie of the 2016 Jewish & Israeli Film Festival here in Cincinnati. (The movie, which opened in Canada last Fall, is scheduled for a theatrical release in the US come next month in March.) After the theater lights came back on upon the conclusion of the movie, people couldn't stop talking about what they had just seen. Suffice it to say, "Remember" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

In a striking similarity to Memento, a forgetful man wanders around with one goal of finding the men from his past. This is not the ordinary thriller as it's significantly slower with a peculiar lead character, yet it's surprisingly just as effective as any high octane action . The journey is not a happy one, and it builds audience's expectation in clever way that when the goal is reached, none of the outcomes seems to be pleasant. Zev (Christopher Plummer) is an old man with dementia. After the death of his wife, his friend hands him a letter containing a mission to find the men from Auschwitz. Christopher Plummer is truly exceptional, he displays the courage as though his character is a secret agent despite deep down he's plagued with terror and uncertainty. His often meek demeanor is sympathetic to watch, but at the same time one can invest in his endeavor and motive. The visual and audio are designed to create suspense even in trivial moments. Its main focus is a man with dementia, and little things might rattle him, so any bump in the trip proves to be challenging. Acting from the rest of cast is commendable. Characters would most likely help Zev, yet there's an unsettling feeling that their reactions can be antagonistic, especially since Zev is not particularly suave with words. It plays with the awkward situation really well with the solemn music and view of scenery that feels darker even though it never literally becomes that way. On the other hand, this could also hamper the pace. This is far from action thriller, more investment is made towards the drama instead of gun-slinging action. Zev's adventure is a bizarre and slow one, it's an ironic tale of both kindness and cruelty of others. Unsettling yet charming in its somber steps.