A thoughtful, creative, and disturbing way to treat the numbness of Holocaust and genocide fatigue, through striking images of a man's bizarre transformation and obsession.
The Memory Thief (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:14
Fresh:11
Rotten:3
Average Rating:6.6/10
Rated: Not Rated
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:May 9, 2008 Limited
Synopsis:
The Memory Thief tells the story of Lukas - an aimless, haunted young man in contemporary L.A. who buries thoughts of his own past in the humdrum routine of a tollbooth clerk. A chance encounter...
The Memory Thief tells the story of Lukas - an aimless, haunted young man in contemporary L.A. who buries thoughts of his own past in the humdrum routine of a tollbooth clerk. A chance encounter with a Holocaust survivor suddenly brings into focus a world and an identity he embraces with frightening intensity - the victimized Jews of World War II. As he begins to enthusiastically act out his newfound obsession, Lukas discovers that survivor's guilt isn't just for the Jews anymore.
The Memory Thief is a mesmerizing, audacious psychological thriller in the tradition of Taxi Driver.The film stars Mark Webber (The Hottest State, Broken Flowers, Storytelling), Rachel Miner (Black Dahlia, Bully, Alice) and Jerry Adler (In Her Shoes, The Sopranos, Manhattan Murder Mystery). --© Official Site
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Starring: Mark Webber, Rachel Miner, Jerry Adler, Allan Rich
Starring: Mark Webber, Rachel Miner, Jerry Adler, Allan Rich, Peter Jacobson, Douglas Spain
Director: Gil Kofman
Director: Gil Kofman
Producer: Gil Kofman, Marika Van Adelsberg
Composer: Ted Reichman
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Reviews for The Memory Thief
There are intriguing issues swirling around the film, but [director] Kofman never brings it to a boil, never finds the deeper, truer meaning inside the ideas he is grappling with.
Director Gil Kofman's attempt is noble in trying to show this descent into madness, but something rings false.
While the film tends to talk over itself in its attempt to say all it needs to say on the subject, his film's uncompromisingly bleak vision is a bracing alternative.
In The Memory Thief, a strange and melancholy journey to the heart of madness, a rootless young man finds meaning in the horrors of a stolen past.
Another case study delving into the hubris and insult of trying too hard to feel someone else's pain.
The film is (perhaps deliberately) as unbalanced as its protagonist, one whose fury ultimately seems directed either nowhere in particular or in too many directions at once -- until things eventually devolve into a Taxi Driver riff.
Kofman includes real-life Holocaust survivors in his cast, a bold and unsettling stroke in a fictional story that's more challenging than most documentaries about the subject.
The Memory Thief, the first narrative feature by Gil Kofman, grants intimate entrance into a needy person's life -- a life bent around the facts of the darkest hours of the 20th century.
Tragedy and closure, memory and truth are the subjects of writer/director Gil Kofman's first narrative feature.
A Holocaust movie with quite an original twist--about a tollbooth collector who imagines himself to be a survivor of Nazi horrors.
The deeply felt performances from [Mark] Webber and Jerry Adler overwhelm the film about a young man whose way of connecting to others is to mirror them.
The ambitious Memory is about coming to grips with the past (or not) and the ownership of memory.
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie | Date |
|---|---|---|
| | Before Tomorrow | 12/2 |
| | Film Ist: A Girl & A Gun | 12/2 |
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