Remember

In a retirement home, Zev Guttman (Christopher Plummer) receives shocking news from his friend and roommate Max Rosenbaum (Martin Landau): the concentration camp guard who murdered both men's families in Auschwitz more than 70 years ago is still hiding under a different identity. Due to his dementia, Zev can only remember events from the past with difficulty. With the help of a letter from Max containing detailed instructions, he is to find the culprit and finally bring him to justice with his own hands. Time is of the essence. The old men don't have much time left – neither the perpetrators of the past nor the surviving victims. Although it takes a lot of strength for the nursing home resident, Zev sets out on his mission to find and kill Rudy Kurlander, the current name of the former Auschwitz block warden. It becomes a moving journey into a dark past in search of truth and retribution. The director of “Remember” is none other than Armenian-Canadian auteur filmmaker Atom Egoyan, who wrote the screenplays for masterpieces such as “Ararat,” “Exotica,” and “The Sweet Hereafter.” His film “Remember” also received an invitation to the Venice Film Festival. The excellent casting of two Rudy Kurlander characters with the well-known German actors Bruno Ganz and Jürgen Prochnow complements the performances of US Oscar winners Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau. Even though Atom Egoyan did not write the screenplay himself this time and had to take criticism for some narrative decisions at the end, he still manages to create a thrilling thriller that is not detracted from by the heavy Holocaust theme and the age of the characters. Injustice does not expire. Neither does the feeling of guilt and the need for revenge. “[...] the directorial finesse of Egoyan, who rose to arthouse stardom in the 1990s with dramas such as 'The Sweet Hereafter', [provides] moments that give you goose bumps. The impartiality with which friendly people admire the frail old man's Glock pistol, for example, creates a slight sense of horror. Zev's encounter with a ranger ['Breaking Bad'-Star Dean Norris], whose affability turns into aggression, is also abysmal. Identity, repression, mystery: it is easy to understand what interested Egoyan in this sensationalist material. The almost 86-year-old Christopher Plummer is a stroke of luck, playing Zev and his disintegrating self in a finely modulated balance between fear and tenacity, frailty and shaky courage. In a film in which the sheepdogs are called Eva, his dignified understatement is all the more exciting." (Birgit Roschy, on: epd-film.de)