[yasr_overall_rating]
With the aid of a fellow Auschwitz survivor and a hand-written letter, an elderly man with dementia goes in search of the person responsible for the death of his family.
I love a good revenge flick. Often narratively simple with one burning end goal to meet, the revenge flick can be dressed up or down with a glut of variables and has the ability to shred an audience’s psyche as they face the slight moral dilemma of either rooting for the proposed hero who carries a stone of malice in their heart or empathizing with the “villain” who there’s usually more to than what meets the eye. Revenge is often never strictly black or white but rather dilutes to a murky gray. Egoyan’s “Remember,” is definitely of that murky breed, pulling at heartstrings only to strike you cold moments later.
Christopher Plummer gives an affecting performance as Zev Gutman, an elderly Jewish man with the early stages of dementia. Zev fumbles and dawdles about endearingly but is hard pressed to remember the ultimate task at hand. Fellow nursing home resident and Auschwitz survivor, Max Rosenbaum (Martin Landau) helps Zev put to action a plan they devised to seek out a former Nazi that is under an assumed identity, and who is responsible for the deaths of their families in Auschwitz. The wheelchair bound Max puts together a long written narrative of reasons why they are plotting revenge and gives Zev step by step instructions of how to get from point A to point B. Zev must be diligent to view the letter often given his ever-increasing clouded memory. There are 4 persons to investigate and time is of the essence. Anxieties are high but hope is present.
The start is slow, leisurely even as Zev travels to each destination with minor bumps along the way. People all around him realize, or having a sneaking suspicion that he’s “confused” but oddly do not interfere and let him go on his merry way. His story starts as a taste testing of sorts via Goldilocks Style, where no one is fitting the bill just right. And by the third encounter he meets danger in its most hateful form.
Dean Norris (“Breaking Bad,” “Under the Dome”) is John Kurlander, the son of one of the men Zev wishes to see. While John admits his father has passed he asks Zev to visit for a while and even though he is hesitant, Zev decides to anyway, curious to see if this man’s father was “the one.” Red flags present themselves everywhere: a secluded house in a wooded area, a ferocious German Shepard named Eva, and the need for John to quickly show off his father’s World War II Nazi sympathetic artifacts. These are probably the most intense scenes of the film; the camera angles itself to slowly reveal the clues that Zev is in immediate danger. With each reveal your stomach bottoms out and you hold your breath.
Dean Norris is chilling but is not the last stop. After plodding along with some detours, the final stop loses the climax you hope to feel but nevertheless goes out with a bang.
Some may comment that this film is absurd or even insensitive to people who have experience with the brutal blows of dementia. They may be right and it may be a cheap trick to utilize as a narrative device. But the astounding round of applause at the end of the screening I attended may indicate triumph! “Remember,” in all of its simplicity, will gnaw at you and make you question who and what you were rooting for, and make you realize how acrid revenge can truly be.
In select theaters March 4th
