De zaak Alzheimer

This Belgian film was titled "The Memory of A Killer" when it played in Austin in September. Known in Europe as "The Alzheimer Case," it's a police procedural about an aging hit man with early Alzheimer's who agrees to complete what he knows is his last assignment. Movies featuring a character with Alzheimer's are often somber, bittersweet weepers. "The Memory of a Killer" is nothing like that.

It's a taut, fast-paced noir with a protagonist who lives by the same code as that of Alain Delon in Jean Pierre Melville's "Le Samourai" or Jean Gabin in "Touchez Pas Au Grisbi." The hit man Angelo Ledda is portrayed by Belgian actor Jan Decleir. He won his country's top acting award and other European festival honors for his nuanced, empathic performance.

How Ledda knows what's happening to his mind is explained in a way totally credible to anyone who has known someone suffering from this disease. Even as his mind slips away, he retains his morality about certain crimes and that code eventually sends him in directions that surprise and anger his employer. Ledda's crimes and related crimes drive two police investigators - and Ledda - in a race against time. The plot threads become as tangled and mysterious as the tangles in Ledda's diseased mind and unravel in a stunning conclusion.

This film was made by Belgian director Erik Van Looy, whose stylish work won top honors along with Decleir. The film is based on the novel "De Zaak Alzheimer" by popular Belgian detective novelist Jef Geeraerts. Hopefully, it and his other novels will be translated into English. Geeraerts' psychological approach evokes another Belgian writer, the incomparable Georges Simenon. This is the first of Geeraerts' stories to reach the big screen, and Hollywood has bought the rights to a remake. Don't wait; see the original. Decleir's portrayal should not be missed.

I saw this film at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival. Although based on a novel, this stylish police thriller's main conceit ("hit-man has Alzheimer's") could have been lifted from a Hollywood film executive's idea of "high concept". Except that it would have made a forgettable Hollywood picture. Instead, director Van Looy sets this story in his native Belgium. Police detectives Vincke and Verstuyft are like a modern day Starsky and Hutch, without the bad haircuts. Who knew that Antwerp even had police, never mind such cool ones? Their job is to track down the man who's killed several high-profile politicians and a young child prostitute.

Reminding me a lot of Terence Stamp in The Limey, veteran actor Jan Decleir portrays aging hitman Angelo Ledda, whose refusal to kill the young girl leads him to seek revenge on the people who want her dead. His deterioration is a cause for sympathy as well as a plot device. He must complete his "mission" before he forgets his reasons for carrying it out. He also plays a cat and mouse game with the police who are trying to solve the killings, staying one step ahead until he can no longer think clearly.

Van Looy admitted his fondness for "police thrillers with a soul" and especially for the work of Michael Mann, and the influence of Mann is everywhere. If you like Mann, you'll like this film. Well-developed characters, moody cinematography and fine acting didn't completely save this film, though. I thought the plot was a little too straightforward, and the film itself was about 20 minutes too long, with a couple of false endings that could have been re-cut. I think I would have given a shorter version of this film an 8, but even if it was a slightly derivative cop film, it was a slightly derivative cop film IN FLEMISH, which has to count for something!

(7/10)

"The Memory of a Killer (De Zaak Alzheimer)" is a sophisticated synthesis of several genres into a stylish thriller. There's the opening shots of a steam engine, saluting European film noir contrasting with the sharp sunlight of corrupt Marseille; the Georges Simenon-like police investigation contemporized with gritty Brit mystery crimes and the hunky bantering buddy cops where one is a wild rule-breaker and his boss is an Eliot Ness straight arrow; the samurai code of honor; the Western where the old gunslinger takes on one last conflict, like "The Unforgiven" and already adapted to "Man on the Train (L'Homme du Train)"; a revenge showdown, like the recent "Four Brothers"; the memory stream of consciousness tricks of "Memento" and the snappy editing of Hong Kong crime thrillers like "Infernal Affairs (Wu jian dao)." And we even get a "The Sopranos"-like psychological profile of a hit man.

While director Erik Van Looy smoothly integrates all these elements together in adapting what must have been a complex novel, this is terrific, intelligent popular entertainment and only its subtitles keep it in limited release in the U.S. in art houses. Too bad a Hollywood adaptation is inevitable.

The film has an exciting dual structure of following the cops and the criminal as they get intertwined and chase each other, as each sorts out vengeance and some justice (with surprising collateral damage) ever higher up the responsibility ladder so that our sympathies, and theirs, are compromised. While we atypically don't see anything of the cops' personal lives (except with an amusing visual twist that it's the guy in the shower), we do get thrust into their quite believable bureaucratic and legal wranglings, which, while a bit confusing for an American audience, can be inferred to be similar to the jurisdictional conflicts between local police departments and the FBI that we've seen in plenty of movies and TV shows. The English subtitles seem pretty good at communicating the localisms, though some of the cultural conflict in Belgium between French and Flemish speakers is lost, particularly when it is significant which language is being spoken.

The twist that is given away in the original title of the film, translated as "The Alzheimer Affair," is that the highly intelligent and perceptive criminal, the charismatic Jan Decleir, realizes he is losing his memory, and sees his near future clearly in his hospitalized brother. We get inside his head as he is trying to out race not only the cops, his traitorous client and duplicitous boss, but himself, so that his taunt of "too slow" takes on a double meaning. His professionalism takes over even when the flashy cinematography indicates he doesn't quite remember what he's done.

While the body count is high, the violence is one on one and is not gratuitous. Each death ratchets up the tensions and complications as what at first seems street level crime has cynical political implications. Much of the film takes place in the dark, like "Collateral," and while there's a fair amount of sudden coming up from behind scares, that's usually the start of a suspenseful scene where cat and mouse decisions ricochet off in surprising ways.

The music very effectively supports the action, particularly when the story continues in an unexpected direction, though the choice of a Starsailor song over the credits didn't seem to fit.

It's a bit perplexing that "The Beat That My Heart Skipped (De Battre mon coeur s'est arrete)" is getting wider distribution (probably because it's a remake of an American film and has a young hunk at the center), when this is the better European crime thriller of the summer.

Having just watched Liam Neeson as the assassin with Alzheimer's and a conscince, I took a shot at the film upon it was based. The orignal is similar as far as the basic story goes but has a few differences, including a vastly different ending.

Jan Declair is excellent as the killer although Liam has more of a screen presence in the American movie.

The hitman is hired to off a series of bad men involved in a prostitution ring. Some of those involved are at the highest levels of society and corruption is rampant within the legal system.

The killer makes a decision not to kill a twelve year-old girl he has ben paid to hit.

The action is almost constant and I recommend both films.

If, like me, you don't know what country "Flemish cinema" refers to, then read on. Yeah, I'm one of those dimwits like Joey on Friends when they tell him Dutch people live in the Netherlands, and he says "no, that's where Peter Pan came from." Suffice it to say this was the first Belgian film I've ever seen, and I was really impressed. It's stylish, polished, has a lush musical score, and features a lot of actors who seem really human. Even the minor roles were well played.

I'm not usually a fan of crime thrillers, but this one drew me in with its interesting premise: a hero who's losing his memory. In that respect, reminded me of the excellent Tom Tykwer film "Winter Sleepers" (1997), except this film is driven by a faster, more action-oriented plot and pace.

There's a lot going on here. Just when you think it's over, a new drama comes into the mix, making it unpredictable until the end. The director effectively used a lot of suspense tricks which will make you say "aha, you got me!" For example (though this was not used in this movie), a cat might jump out at the perfect moment to give your heart a little leap. In hindsight it's silly, but you can't deny it works. So bear in mind, this is definitely a movie for people who enjoy being taken for a ride. In the same vein, I think the director intentionally uses some standard clichés, almost in a playful way. If you approach this movie with the idea of having a fun time, you won't be disappointed.

Final note: I think it helps to be a little familiar with Belgian culture, which I'm not. I could tell the characters switch languages between different variations of Dutch/Flemish, French, and snippets of English, and I think that's significant. Some of the settings are breathtaking, and I found myself saying "wow, that place is cool! I wonder where that is". In all, this is a film that Belgium can be very proud of, and I hope to see more like it in the future.