The feature debut from the Israeli-born, Berlin-based visual artist and film-maker Omer Fast is a slippery, enigmatic adaptation of the novel by Tom McCarthy. Following a young man (Tom Sturridge) along a Möbius strip of a story from a traumatic brain injury through the recovery of his memories, the film invites comparison with Synecdoche, New York, Donnie Darko and Memento. The glossy chill of the tone is both intriguing and alienating – it draws us in, but holds us at arm’s length.
Sturridge’s character – he is never named – receives a massive payout following a freak accident. He uses it to recreate the fragments of memory from a past life – an apartment building, an elderly lady who endlessly cooks liver, a trio of cats on a roof, a boy. All of this is achieved with the help of a super fixer, Naz (Arsher Ali), who is himself drawn into the man’s retold story. A score by Schneider TM, which features metallic clicks and disorienting loops, is the boldest use of film music since Mica Levi’s score for Under the Skin.
