Rememory (4 Stars)

This is a fascinating film with a concept that overlaps "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". Very few people were in the cinema today, even though the film will only be shown for one week. Maybe they don't like Peter Dinklage as an actor? Whatever the reason, they were wrong to stay away. It's a film to watch and talk about afterwards.

The inventor Gordon Dunn has created a device that reads a person's memories and stores them in digital form to be viewed by others or the person himself. As he explains, the human brain remembers everything that is ever seen and heard. When we say we have forgotten something it just means that we can no longer access it. Everything is stored. The machine can be used therapeutically or for entertainment purposes.

Shortly before the machine is due to go into mass production Gordon is found dead in his office. The prototype of his machine is missing, and it's impossible to rebuild copies of the machine without the prototype. A man called Sam Bloom (played by Peter Dinklage) breaks into Gordon's home after his death and finds the machine in the cellar, together with memory cards containing memories from the primary test subjects. He steals the machine and uses the stored memories to solve the mystery of who killed Gordon Dunn.

Sam and Gordon have a history together, which is explained in more detail as the film continues. They met in a hotel when Sam was thinking of ending his life, and the short time they spent together changed his mind. Now he feels that he owes everything to Gordon.

There's so much about this film that fascinates me. I couldn't stop thinking about it all the way home, asking myself repeated philosophical questions. I like the idea that my brain has recorded all my memories. Is that true? What I mean is, I consider that I have a good memory, probably better than most people's, but there are still things that I've forgotten. My early memories are patchy. I have a few sporadic memories from when I was three and four years old, but I can remember very little of what I experienced before I started school. I would give anything to be able to see my early years again, even the unpleasant things. I had a serious accident when I was 18 months old, something my parents told me about, but I have no memories of it happening. My earliest memory of my sister Shirley is her first day at school. I wish I could remember things I experienced with her before then.

Even more recently there are gaps of a trivial nature. What did I eat for breakfast on this day last year? What was my birthday present on my 16th birthday? Just because they're things not worth remembering, supposedly, it doesn't mean that I wouldn't be curious to see these days again.

Some people have bigger memory losses. One of my friends in the Stuttgart Film Group told me that he has no memories at all of the time before he was 10. That's a shame. I have some very vivid memories of that period in my life, and I'd be missing something if I no longer had them. Another example is Phil Daniels, who played the lead role in "Quadrophenia" in 1979. In an interview he gave in 2005 he said that he couldn't remember making the film. When he watches the film he can see that it's him as a young man, but he can't remember it happening. That's something I can't understand. I would have thought that a film record would have reminded him and made it all impossible to forget. Apart from that, how could he forget his passionate kisses with Leslie Ash in the alleyway?

Some memories might be lost accidentally, while others are deliberately suppressed because of trauma. There's the case of my ex-wife Brigitte. When I returned to her after 19 years apart I wanted to talk to her about my reasons for leaving her. I couldn't. She's forgotten everything that happened. I hoped for some sort of apology about the way she treated me, but she can't apologise for things that she can't remember saying and doing. I left her because of the terrible way she was treating me, but she denies she ever did anything wrong. I don't think she's lying. She honestly doesn't remember anything. This is her mind playing tricks on her. She's so obsessed with the idea that she was wrongly deserted by her husband that she can't remember what led up to it. Maybe she got so used to complaining about me month after month after I left that she reached the point that her excuses replaced her memories and became her new truth.

Some people might want to forget what they've done. I've done things in my life that I regret. The worst thing I ever did was to hit Karl, a nurse who was looking after me in hospital in 2000. Yes, I was ill at the time, but that's no excuse. It's something I wish I could forget, but it's imprinted on my brain. In a way, it's like a foreign memory stuck in my brain. People who know me know that I'm a gentle person who never loses his temper. I never attack anyone, and even in cases of self-defence my punch is just a small tap to keep the person away. Karl, poor Karl, his face will haunt me as long as I live. I wrote him a letter apologising, but he never replied. Ignoring my apology hurt me even more. Nevertheless, it's good that I remember this incident, to remind myself of how low I can fall when I don't keep control.

This is an important theme in the film "Lost Highway". When the police detective asks Fred Madison if he has a video camera, he replies, "No, I hate them. I like to remember things my own way, not necessarily the way they happened". Later in the film the mystery man points a camera at him, filming everything he does. It's wrong to have incorrect memories of things that didn't happen. In its worst form, that's a psychosis. On the other hand, it's acceptable to interpret your memories. When you look back on something you've done you can explain your actions in retrospect. You can also try to explain what others did.

Though "Rememory" is primarily about recording memories, it also deals with the possibility of deleting memories or creating new memories. If that's therapy, I don't want it. I want to keep my memories, exactly the way they happened. If my memories were stored on hundreds of discs, I could decide which to show other people and which to keep for myself. It's not about deception. If I'm editing my life for public consumption I should decide what's relevant in order for others to understand me. Even if I could remember what I was given on my 16th birthday it's not necessary to tell everyone.

I've written a lot, I know, and I could write even more. This is a subject that interests me. I'd like to discuss it with any of my readers who have thoughts about it. Leave your comments in the box below.