Remainder

After an accident, Tom (Tom Sturridge) lies severely injured in a coma. When he wakes up, he has lost his memory. He can no longer remember his friends, his work, and certainly not the events leading up to the accident. Plagued by pain and strange dreams, even the settlement of eight and a half million pounds can do little to get Tom's life back on track. He's certain that if he recreates what he thinks are memories, he'll get his life back. And so, with the help of a consulting firm, he has his memories re-enacted, becoming increasingly obsessively lost in a world where the lines between dreams and reality seem to blur.

With Remainder, renowned video artist Omer Fast delivers his first feature film. In the second half of the film in particular, as with his art, he seems to place more emphasis on visual aesthetics than on the story. The story gets more and more convoluted and culminates in a mindfuck that has a certain long-term effect, but really makes no sense at all. The same goes for other aspects of the production, which are really only used for their own sake, but not for a build-up of the story in the classic sense. This may be fascinating to watch, and at least seem artistically worthwhile. But on reflection, it's just not art to create confusion just to stand out from the mainstream.

Now, of course, one could argue that the deeper message of the film will only be revealed to you if you break away from your usual notions of storytelling and see the whole thing as a great work of art. If you can't do that - as admittedly was the case with me - you simply didn't understand the film. That may be. Still, I think that a few great images, some deeply hidden symbolism, and an artistic ambition don't make a movie. Just because a work is only accessible to a small, open-minded circle of self-proclaimed cinephiles and not the masses doesn't make it a masterpiece. And as great as the film may be for such viewers who can discover something fascinating, beautiful and unique just behind the convoluted, extremely unwieldy production, it must also be conceded that there will be many who might see in the whole thing a pointless and extremely exhausting self-promotion of an artist - and that these viewers are not necessarily wrong about that.

To perhaps bring it down to a conciliatory denominator: Remainder is a film that will divide minds. For some it is art, for others it is not. But one thing is clear: this confusion game is visually as well as atmospherically extremely fascinating and can not be easily pigeonholed. If you like it cryptic and convoluted and if you generally appreciate cinema off the beaten track, this is the right movie for you. But if you like to know what the movie you're watching is about, you'll rather remember this work with horror. Therefore also: Only with restrictions worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp