Tag Archives: Amnesia

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CAPSULE: THE ACTOR (2025)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: André Holland, , May Calamaway, Asim Chaudhry, Joe Cole, Fabien Frankel, , , , Youssef Kerkour, Simon McBurney, Tanya Reynolds, , Scott Alexander Young

PLOT: An actor in the 1950s loses his memory after being struck in the head by a jealous husband, and winds up in a small Ohio town trying to puzzle out his own identity.

Still from the actor (2025)

COMMENTS: For his solo debut feature, protege Duke Johnson takes on a neurological  dysfunction; but whereas his  mentor would tackle an ambitiously exotic condition like Cotard’s syndrome or Fregoli syndrome, Johnson restricts his theme to humble amnesia. Paul, an actor, is struck on the head with a chair when caught in bed with another man’s wife. He wakes up in a hospital with no memory—he has to be told his name and occupation—and is almost immediately run out of town by a detective who warns him that adultery is against the law and he’ll be arrested if he returns. He knows he is from New York City, but doesn’t have enough pocket change for a ticket there, so he ends up in a small Midwestern town working at a tannery. While there, he meets and romances nice—if eccentric—small-town gal Edna, but leaves her behind once he’s saved up enough for a bus ticket back to the Big Apple. In the big, wicked city, his former friends (a roguish lot) treat him like nothing has changed, despite the fact that he doesn’t remember them, and his agent gets him a small comeback role on a TV show. But will the fact that he can’t even remember names that were told to him a few minutes ago affect his prospects as a thespian?

Johnson’s uses blatant theatrical artifice to suggest Paul’s disorientation. Scenes are staged like a big budget play or a low-budget TV show. A third-person narrator occasionally interjects exposition. Some of the streets Paul walks through look like they are built on studio backlots, with large swaths of blackness disguising the emptiness of the warehouse. Elements from a cartoon bleed into the real world. His own life shows up on everyone’s favorite program “A Silent Heart” (which appears to be the only TV show in existence in Paul’s world). Paul discovers that some real items in his house look like impractical stage props. An invisible wipe tracks his journey from an interior to an exterior location. Voices may be slightly out of sync, and he glimpses vaguely familiar faces. Doctors try recovering memories through “narcoserum”-aided hypnotic regression, leading to a dream sequence that’s only slightly mistier than his regular reality. Paul’s cameo casting in “The Silent Heart” (which, not by accident, involves a trial) throws him into a Kafkaesque nightmare where his self-confidence in what he assumes is his own acting talent is overwhelmed by the reality that he is not capable of processing what’s going on around him. All of this creates an impressively dreamlike world, putting us in the mindset of an amnesiac for whom the world operates according to familiar tropes, yet feels unreal in its concrete details.

What “really happens” in The Actor is, for the most part, easily determined. But the confusing part is what it all means—why bother to tell this story that seems to arrive nowhere? Amnesia, in and of itself, is not usually the subject of a narrative, but a rather common (even a clichéd) device for seeding a mystery. Here, there’s no great reveal—not on the plot, the psychological, the thematic, or the metaphysical levels—although we frequently get the sense that some epiphany is just about to arrive. The colorblind casting ( was originally intended to play the lead) isn’t especially distracting, but seems to be a missed opportunity for adding another layer to the story; amnesiac or not, a black actor’s experiences in Jim Crow America would have a vastly different character than a white actor’s. In the end, the movie plays like nothing more than a dreamy demonstration of the life of an amnesiac, with no discernible deeper message beyond “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” The fact that so many of The Actor‘s individual scenes create such effective senses of disorientation and anticipation makes the movie’s refusal to ultimately resolve itself an underwhelming and slightly frustrating experience. It’s a film that somehow manages to be intriguing without becoming actually interesting; its fascinations are entirely formal and theoretical. You should still probably check out whatever Johnson tries next, though; he has his cinematic technique down.

A word about that large cast: after Holland and Chan, the rest are listed in the opening credits simply as “the Troupe.” It’s reminiscent of the collective credit “the Mercury Actors” in Citizen Kane, and as in that movie, the end credits show clips revealing who played which role. Recognizing the actors is one of the unexpected minor treats of The Actor.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a weird, trippy, movie that has themes of reinventing oneself when you think it is too late to do so. André Holland is incredible.”–Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky (contemporaneous)

The Actor [Blu-ray]

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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: MONDAY (2000)

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Mandei

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DIRECTED BY: Sabu (Hiroyuki Tanaka)

FEATURING: Shin’ichi Tsutsumi, Yasuko Matsuyuki, Ren Ohsugi, , Akira Yamamoto,

PLOT: A businessman awakens in a strange hotel room with no recollection as to how he got there; as reassembles his memories, he discovers that a number of shocking acts lead directly back to him.

COMMENTS: “Get a little booze in you and you’re a tough guy,” the mugger’s moll says. And right she is. Koichi Takagi, a meek middle manager (in Japanese parlance, a salaryman) can’t even stand up to his mouse-voiced girlfriend. But get a few drinks in him, he becomes an entirely different person. Confident, even cocky, and – provided with the proper tools – a spree killer. Kanpai!

Like Garfield but so much worse, Koichi is having a truly terrible Monday. He wakes up in an unfamiliar hotel room with multiple religious tomes open on his bedside table and no clear memory of his weekend. When the neurons finally begin to fire, they first recall an incredibly uncomfortable funeral where, through farcical hijinks, he is called upon to snip the wires on the corpse’s pacemaker with disastrous results. From there, his girlfriend dumps him after he fails to explain why he missed her birthday party. An attempt to drink away his woes lands him in the orbit of a yakuza boss, and soon he’s engaging in a highly charged dance number with the gangster’s girlfriend. Alcohol definitely seems to have loosened him up, but maybe too much, as will become apparent once he gets a hold of the mobster’s shotgun. Whoops.

A surprising number of reviewers seem to think that “’Monday’ is a movie for those who believe that fate has once again dealt them an especially bad day.” The thing is, I don’t think this is really a case of bad luck. There are three very clear causes at the root of Takagi’s rampage: a gurgling rage from overwork and underappreciation, a distinct inability to keep a clear head with all the liquor that’s thrust upon him, and the sudden and unfortunate availability of a Philadelphia-made shotgun. (One of his selected poisons, Henry McKenna Kentucky bourbon, also throws some shade at all-American vices.) Maybe one can argue that none of these things are intentional on Koichi’s part, but this isn’t just a rotten roll of the dice. Rather, he has reached the point where he is unable to hold himself back from bad choices. In a funny/tragic moment, Koichi begins to compose a maudlin suicide note, expressing regrets to his family and offering explicit instructions for taking care of his plants. But while he writes, he idly takes a swig (and then several more) from a nearby bottle of booze, and his tone becomes less conciliatory and more aggressive. That proves unfortunate, but that’s not dumb happenstance.

The revelation of Koichi’s lost weekend plays out like a darker version of The Hangover, but when he discovers that every channel on the television is talking about him, as well as the regrettable ease of perpetrating gun violence, Monday takes on a different tenor as he tries to find a way out of this mess. It soon becomes clear that he’s the only guest left in the hotel, and the place is surrounded by authorities waiting to apprehend him as a brutal murderer. Here is where the film makes its true bid for weirdness, deploying a series of massive tonal shifts and elaborate setpieces in quick succession. When the drunk and armed Koichi emerges from his hotel room, we’re treated to a violent action scene to compete with the likes of John Woo or Gareth Evans. When Koichi enters an elevator to make his way down to the street, he is accompanied by a gaggle of giddy white-painted demons urging him on as he indulges his worst impulses. And when he reaches the street and takes the lead detective hostage, he indulges in an amusingly self-serving inspirational speech that culminates in a public celebration akin to the boys coming home from war. It’s a dizzying display, but even if you thought you could draw any meaning from it, Sabu yanks the rug out by returning Koichi back to the hotel room to contemplate his predicament. And there we end, certain that it all means something, but sure of little else.

Monday relies heavily on the goodwill engendered by Tsutsumi’s affable performance. He seems like a decent man in a world where decency gets eaten for lunch, and even when his actions are at their most appalling, you hold out hope that he’ll come to his senses and pull himself out of the muck. But despite his charm, you can pity Koichi but you can’t really forgive him. His excuses have merit, but his actions are indisputable. Friday may be pay day, but Monday is when the bills come due.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The flashbacks become increasingly edgy as Sabu turns up the danger, as well as the weird… It’s the sort of thing that sends conventional moviegoers and I suppose overseas distributors running for the hills, but Sabu has too much on mind to be concerned about that. One thing Sabu is not is subtle, and serious issues, such as unchecked authority, glorified perceptions of violence, and the questionable right to take justice into one’s own hands, come to the forefront, even debated openly by the main character and those he confronts.” – Steve Kopian, Unseen Films (2022 screening)

(This movie was nominated for review by Tamori. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Capsules

CAPSULE: APPLES (2020)

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Apples is currently available for VOD rental or purchase.

DIRECTED BY: Christos Nikou

FEATURING: Aris Servetalis, Sofia Georgovassili

PLOT:  After falling victim to a syndrome that causes sudden memory loss, Aris enters an odd recovery program designed to create new memories for a new identity.

Still from Apples (2020)

COMMENTS: When a man snarls traffic by abandoning his vehicle in the road and sitting on the curb, then denies it was his car, a fellow passenger takes it in stride and calls an ambulance. In Apples, an incurable plague of sudden-onset amnesia is so common that people don’t get angry about the inconveniences it causes. When Aris forgets his name and where he’s going on a public bus, he is routinely sent to a hospital wing dedicated to amnesiacs. After no friends or family come to claim him, he is enrolled in an experimental new program designed to give amnesiacs a new beginning. The regimen involves the subject recreating a series of representative experiences—riding a bicycle, crashing a car, having a one-night stand—and taking Polaroids of themselves at the scene, which they place in a special memory album. With no other obvious options, Aris dutifully enters the program and sets about following the doctors’ instructions for creating a life. A few tantalizing memories of his old existence occasionally break through the fog: a dog’s name, a street address. But all we can be reasonably certain of from his previous life is that he loved apples.

Apples will necessarily be seen as a late entry in the Greek Weird Wave—launched by with the deadpan absurdity of 2009’s Dogtooth—and I doubt debuting director Christos Nikou would disavow the influence. Apples is Lanthomisian in rhythm and style, but pared-down to its essential moods. The acting is restrained but subtle, as opposed to the in-your-face, disconnected-from-reality non-acting that inhabits much of the Weird Wave. Servetalis’ nondescript, bearded face forms the perfect blank canvas on which we can project our own anxieties and melancholy. The sense of humor is absurd—Aris on a child’s bike, a doctor suggesting patients’ make therapeutic Molotov cocktails—but never approaches the surreal heights of something like The Lobster. The world here is only slightly askew, with the unexplained amnesia plague and the low-tech setting (Polaroids and cassette tapes instead of cell phones) serving as the only clues we’re not in present day reality. The spare cinematic compositions are designed to reinforce a sense of isolation, even in urban settings, but they are classically framed. (A cemetery scene with bone-white tombstones set against a gray sky and Aris standing in a slumped silhouette is one of the sweeter shots of the year.) It all seems designed to be more audience friendly than usual for the genre, but that choice doesn’t feel like a calculated compromise; rather, Nikou locates a natural space between standard arthouse drama and experimental film where he’s comfortable exploring penetrating ideas.

Note that there are two parts to the program Aris enters: constructing false memories, and creating a new identity for himself. Apples‘ plot focuses our attention on the bizarre methodology of the first part, but thematically, it’s more interested the second part of the formula. Apples becomes an existential fable raising open-ended questions: is Aris’ amnesia a result of traumatic event? Is it, in some sense, a choice? How essential is memory to our identity—if I forget everything, am I still me? Does the hospital’s structured regimen help or hinder Aris to live authentically? Apples invites you to puzzle out these questions on your own. The ending is, ironically, memorable.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“It all sounds bizarre on paper. But Apples, the first feature from the director and co-writer Christos Nikou, unfolds with an understated deadpan wit that makes even its weirder touches seem plausible, even logical. At times it reminded me of some of the brilliant absurdist satires, like Dogtooth and Attenberg, that have put Greek cinema on the map over the past two decades.”–Justin Chang, NPR (contemporaneous)

List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: PLAYDURIZM (2020)

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DIRECTED BY: Gem Deger

FEATURING: Austin Chunn, Gem Deger, Issy Stewart

PLOT: Demir lusts after handsome auctioneer Andrew, Andrew lusts after blonde druggie Drew, and Drew has an intermittent death wish for Demir.

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA LIST: Taking his visual cues from Liquid Sky and his narrative cues from Videodrome, first-time filmmaker Gem Deger presents a hazy narrative teeming with homoeroticism, designer drugs, unnerving violence, tragic escapism, and the reliably cutesy presence of a house pig.

COMMENTS: With well over a century of cinema having come and gone, it becomes increasingly difficult to dismiss a film for being “derivative.” Variations on themes is the only way to tell a story these days, and it is with that in mind that I judge Playdurizm, the directorial, screenwriting, and acting debut of Gem Deger. Deger puts forward his manifesto in the opening sequence, narrating that “[Francis] Bacon said there’s nothing apart from the moment… I believe in nothing,” over a pink-lit sex scene. Whatever pretentiousness may come across in his art-housey introduction is, against the odds, grounded by the surreal tragedy that ensues.

Demir (Gem Deger) wakes up to the sounds of a pig rooting around what may be his bedroom. It is unclear, as it is quickly established that Demir has lost his memory—suffered a “complete reboot”, according to his house mate, Andrew (Austin Chunn)—and sees little option but to follow the pet pig as it scampers across the purple- balloon-covered floor. Demir is awkward, soft-spoken, and ostensibly allergic to peanut butter, making Drew’s suggestion he try some on his breakfast bagel a bit too cutesy-sinister. But the “Drew problem” Demir faces (he lusts fiercely after Andrew) is solved quickly enough with a drug overdose. However, an improbable man with a genuine Malevich soon appears, and his ambitions aren’t entirely to do with selling a “Black Square” painting to Andrew.

Ambition and amateurism collide throughout, making for a twitchy viewing experience. Austin Chunn looks the role—presuming, of course, one is envisioning an impressively sexy auctioneer—but at times seems more like he’s playing the part instead of inhabiting it. On the other hand, Chunn’s dialogue delivery when suturing a nasty wound is spot-on; contemplating his sewing hook and floss, I believed it when he advised, “this is going to… be a little minty.” Gem Deger’s performance simultaneously benefits and suffers from his awkward, heavily accented delivery. Ultimately, though, the chemistry between Deger and Chunn is undeniable.

The sound design, set design, and prop choices (Goebbels’ belt-buckle gun, anyone?) carry much of the weight, weird-wise. If someone told me that Deger had never seen Liquid Sky, I’d say they were lying. Any excuse for neon tones and lighting is good enough; the Day-Glo vomit, wondrous in its luminescence, is an obvious nod to Margaret’s makeup. Beyond the direct Videodrome name-drop (Demir and Andrew get high watching it together while Drew is lying dead in a cupboard space beneath the sofa), there is a slow tilt toward body horror and twin-dom that is what the cumbersome term “ian” was devised for.

Those fine lines between amateurism and ambition, pretentious and tragic, and derivative and original all weave together by the finale, as the story’s actual events come to light.  Deger admits his plagiarism in the title. This cinematic exploration of the adversities that so often befall the queer community is melodramatic, vibrant, frightened, and determined—not unlike that wondrous community itself.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…any film festival looking for a film that shirks conventional story telling with surrealism and puts danger and violence into romance and sex should consider it…”–Andre Mack, Screen Anarchy (festival screening)

Apocryphally Weird

9*. GEMINI (1999)

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Sôseiji

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Masahiro Motoki, Ryô

PLOT: Yukio is a successful doctor, decorated for his service in the war. His wife Rin is an amnesiac. Yukio discovers he has an identical twin from whom he was separated at birth—a resentful and savage twin, bent on revenge.

Still from Gemini (1999)

BACKGROUND:

  • Tsukamoto adapted the story from a 1924 short story by Edogawa Rampo (“the Japanese Edgar Allan Poe”).
  • In an unusual move, fellow director assembled a 15-minute “making of” featurette to accompany the film on DVD.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: Our first glimpse of the twin in the shadows. He looks just like Yukio, but wears ragged robes and a bizarre fur earmuff that covers half of his face. He shakes like he’s having a fit, then approaches the camera by doing cartwheels. It’s scary enough to give someone a heart attack.

TWO WEIRD THINGS: Eyebrowless clan; somersaulting doppelganger

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Pulling back from the unbridled mania of Tetsuo: The Iron Man and similar body-horror experiments, Shinya Tsukamoto proves that he can generate cold sweats with a more subtle, purely psychological approach. With its deep shadows and determined pace, Gemini generates an uncanny horror that seeps into your bones.

The opening minutes of “The Making of Gemini“

COMMENTS: Gemini begins with an abstract, ominous prologue. It Continue reading 9*. GEMINI (1999) →