L'homme qui voulait se souvenir

Saw this at the Leiden International Film Festival 2016 (LIFF). First half was promising and gripping, the second half lost steam (can happen), but alas the ending was totally unsatisfactory as it undoes all of what happened before. Of course, rebuilding your past from a few vague memories, uncertain who you can trust and who is only interested in your money, is a daunting task. That is even so while owning the 8.5 million he had received as compensation, allowing him a "spare no expenses" approach. I found it a disappointment that beginning and ending seemed to bite each other's tails, especially as this movie is not marked as Sci-Fi and is not in the business of time paradoxes and related issues with time travel explored in other stories (is the last sentence a spoiler??). As presented here in this movie, what we see is utterly impossible as well as an insult to our logic.

Tom played by Tom Sturridge is injured when he is hit by falling debris on the streets of London. After months of convalescing in hospital he is released home. Only he has lost all memory before the incident. The good news is that his lawyers tell him he has been offered a life changing sum by the insurers responsible so long as he keeps his mouth shut.

He then becomes haunted by fragments of memory that seem to hold the key to his past and might be able to explain who he really is and also who are the people around him. So he embarks on a way to recreate the past and in so doing runs into the dark World of rewriting the past by melding it with a contrived future.

Now this is a really gripping watch, it is arty coming from director Omer Fast who specialised in video art before going into film. It can be edge of seat stuff in places and the performances are all done in a way to complement each other. Sturridge is more or less an emotion blank canvas until he finds his fragmentary memories to give emotion to his life. This rubs up nicely with the other players who are either in it for the ride or are clearly hiding something. Based on the book by Tom K. McCarthy, this is one that film lovers in all its dark glory will find much to admire.

The movie started out a bit monotonous but then i started to wonder about the ending of the movie. The whole movie was pretty mysterious, which at times made me lose interest in the movie. The ending was enough. Tom's acting performance was good, but his character was unsuccessful for me. I'm curious about the adapted book but I don't think I will read.

First non-cinema film in a while I've stayed interested long enough to watch in its entirety. Very tight mindf!ck of a thing, and the end was. Weirdly Korean in its sensibilities? Approve. Also ngl Tom Sturbridge bleeds real pretty.