Embers

3/31/18. This was a visual meditation about the importance of memory. When you lose your memory you lose your humanity. There is very little in terms of story lines, just little vignettes of people trying to make it through the day with little memory of who they are and what just happened to them. Very sad. Just think of all these people having Alzheimers and you will understand just how tragic it is to lose one's ability to remember memory. In some ways it's better to have bad memories than to have no memories at all.

A film about memory that will trigger future memories for me of its many haunting moments and images. An incredibly ambitious accomplishment of genuine independent filmmaking (both in theme, design, and execution). The always delightful Jason Ritter (here in a heartbreaking role; a simple beat he takes with a water bottle is among the most poignant scenes in recent cinema), and some thoroughly confident and brilliant actors new-to-me whom I hope to see again (Iva Gocheva, Roberto Cots, Greta Fernandez) made this well worth the viewing, along with the surprise of discovering a director (Claire Carre) who will surely deliver many fascinating films in the future.

Took me a while to figure out how to rate this thing, which is always a good high gauge on my barometer of film excellence. Many reviews wanted this to go somewhere. But the complete absence of memory in stark reality, says you wont, because you wont remember where to go. And for those who still have memory, is it worth having if you are isolated? And if you have intelligence, how do you fight this plague? It also gives a stark look at the ID. Who are we without memory, when all we have left, is our basic nature? I have seen many memory loss movies, but this is by far the best. The acting is superlative, on all fronts. Just like any film buff, I like a good conclusion. But I was happy with this negative one, because of the very nature of the subject matter. In this case, the beginning was the ending, and well, visa versa.

I saw some favorable comments about this, and it was sci-fi which sometimes opens up interesting possibilities, so I really wanted to like this movie. Unfortunately I did not see this going anywhere. It was very predictable, shallow and clichéd, even naive. Toward the end I was hoping to see some kind of point to justify the favorable reviews - instead the movie just ended. Technically it was OK. The actors were OK. And yes, it was not that generic Hollywood garbage, as mentioned in another review. Yet, the ideas of this movie have already been seen and used so much better in many other movies. If you have not seen those other movies yet, good for you, you are in for a treat! Unfortunately for me, I have seen those other movies.

This movie takes place in a post apocalyptic future in which some sort of plague has wiped out everyone's short term memory, so everyone is like the main character in Memento. It's an interesting premise, and the atmosphere of the film is great; however, although the film definitely has some artful and well crafted "moments", it never quite comes together as a whole. Worth watching, but not particularly memorable (no pun intended).