BY TODD GARBARINI
Zev
Guttman (Christopher Plummer) is an elderly Jewish New York nursing home
resident whose wife, Ruth, recently passed on. In the early stages of dementia, he finds himself forgetting things,
such as Ruth’s death, which is evident each time that he awakens and calls out
her name. Zev is also a survivor of the
Auschwitz concentration camp (presumably Auschwitz II-Birkenau, which was a
combination concentration camp and extermination camp). Another nursing home resident, Max Rosenbaum
(Martin Landau), recognizes Zev from the camp. While Zev is able-bodied and mentally declining, Max is confined to a
wheelchair yet as smart as a whip and in full control of his faculties. Max reminds Zev that their families were
murdered during World War II at the hands of a ruthless Blockführer named Otto
Wallisch who fled Germany under the name of “Rudy Kurlanderâ€. Max has managed to locate four people living
in the United States under this assumed name and has a hunch that once of them
is the one and only Otto Wallisch. He
has spared no expense to send Zev out on a mission, armed with thousands of
dollars in cash, a handgun, and written instructions to find and murder Wallisch
in retaliation for his actions. Zev
sneaks out of the nursing home and escapes detection, much to the dismay of his
son and daughter-in-law who frantically search for him. When Zev makes his way across the country
looking for the various Rudy Kurlander’s, he comes face to face with people who
fled German occupied countries and sympathizes with them. Bruno Ganz plays the first such fleer and his
role is a small one, however it is revealed on the commentary that he had a
much longer monologue and I wish that it had been reinstated for the home video
release. This actor also played Adolph
Hitler in Downfall (2004).
The
second Rudy Kurlander is a bedridden homosexual whose plight moves Zev to
tears. Later, a case of mistaken
identity lands Zev unwittingly in the home of an anti-Semite played with
horrific gusto by Dean Norris, an actor who just gets better with every role he
plays. By the time he makes it to the
home of the fourth man he is looking for, the ending is not what we expect, and
it’s easy to carp about whether or not it’s effective or predictable.
I
have never seen a boring film by Atom Egoyan. One of the most interesting directors working today, Mr. Egoyan’s films
are fascinating cinematic revelations which I look forward to each time he
announces a new project. Canadian
audiences are probably most familiar with his earlier work which consist of Family Viewing (1987) and Speaking Parts (1989). His best works, The Adjuster (1991), Exotica
(1994), and The Sweet Hereafter
(1997), brought him worldwide attention and rightfully so as they are easily
three of the greatest films to come out of the Canadian film industry. Remember
does not quite reach the heights of these three films (it is less cinematically
interesting than its predecessors), but it is still an interesting outing given
his output since 2005’s Where the Truth
Lies which, 2008’s Adoration
notwithstanding, has been fairly uneven. Most of Remember’s detractors
fault the screenplay and the aforementioned denouement, in addition to the
questionable choice of using the Holocaust as a subject for a revenge drama
with characters seemingly fashioned after modern-day stereotypes. All that aside, watching Christopher
Plummer’s portrayal of Zev kept me captivated. It’s a carefully understated interpretation of a role that was written
with him in mind. I first saw him
onscreen as Sir Charles Litton in Blake Edwards’s The Return of the Pink Panther in the summer of 1975 when I was
almost seven years-old and found him to be funny and charming. His turn as Zev is, obviously, much
different, as we follow him through his routines of getting dressed, falling
asleep and waking up in a confused state. Mr. Plummer plays the role with maximum efficiency and basically
inhabits Zev’s skin. His forgetfulness and
need to refer to written notes calls to mind Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2000).
The
Blu-ray from Lionsgate comes with some nice extras. There is a full-length audio commentary with director Egoyan, producer
Robert Lantos and screenwriter Benjamin August who discuss how the project came
about and the casting of those involved. I have always loved commentaries as they give you a terrific insight
into how the creators intended certain scenes to play and how they actually are
presented. Mr. Egoyan has always been
especially articulate when discussing his films and this commentary is no
exception.
There
is also a featurette entitled Performances
to Remember which runs roughly 17 minutes and is essentially a
behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film and on-set interviews
conducted with some of the performers regarding their roles. More than a few minutes are spent on the set
of the anti-Semite’s house and the director explains how it was deliberately
built to accommodate Paul Sarossy’s camera (Mr. Egoyan’s longtime
cinematographer) from a multitude of angles. Mr. Plummer also weighs in on his role of Zev.
A Tapestry of Evil: Remembering the
Past is a featurette that runs about 14
minutes and it focuses on screenwriter Benjamin August’s desire to write a film
about the hunt for Nazi war criminals.
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