Relativity (5 Stars)

The original title of this German film is "Mein Ende. Dein Anfang", which means "My end. Your beginning". Normally I don't agree with film titles being changed from one country to another, but in this case the English title is appropriate. It gives a hint of what the film is about, which can't be said of the German title.

It's a love film, but it's also a treatise on causality and the nature of time. It's the first film directed by Mariko Minoguchi, and the influences are obvious. She's imitating the narrative style of Christopher Nolan, and she does it very effectively.

Nora and Aron are lovers. It's significant that their names are the same when spelt backwards. Nora is a supermarket cashier, Aron is a university lecturer at the beginning of his career. In the opening scenes he asks, if all of time exists simultaneously, why do we remember the past but not the future? Maybe it's because the human mind is limited and can't deal with memories of the future, so it relegates them to dreams and occasional feelings of déjà vu.

Five minutes into the film Aron is shot dead in a bank robbery. This is the turning point on which the rest of the film hinges. From this point on two stories are told in parallel. The story of Nora's love affair with Aron is told backwards, from the present back to the day they met. The story of Nora's struggle to cope with her loss is told forwards. She meets a new man, Natan, only a few days after Aron's death. She has the uncanny feeling that she's known him all her life. It's also significant that Natan's name is a palindrome. The two stories continue until they clash, with the past and the future (relative to the turning point) influencing one another.

The film's implications are far-reaching. Could it be that the decisions we make are based on our suppressed memories of future events? Furthermore, is that the only way to make qualified decisions? Nora is an innocent. She believes that everything that happens in life is a matter of chance. Aron, who has studied quantum mechanics, says that everything is predetermined, we just don't know all the facts. Which one of them is right?

This is a brilliant film that I need to watch again. It's not a film to watch once. I need to reinterpret the early scenes in the light of what happens at the end.