Remember

In Hebrew, the name Zev means “wolf,” but the protagonist of Atom Egoyan’s new film, Remember, is more like a lamb. Zev Gutman strikes no predatory impressions when we first meet him lying prone in bed, calling out his dead wife’s name in a state of bestirred delusion. He cuts a feeble figure: He does not wear the countenance of a ruthless killer, and yet killing has become the sole purpose of what remains of his life. Remember is about the Holocaust, but at its heart it is a revenge film, the rare sort that combines the pursuit of such with recollections of the Shoah; think Flame & Citron or Inglourious Basterds, but modern-set and, until the film’s finale, less fantastical.
Zev (Christopher Plummer) is a chess piece on a board set by his friend, Max (Martin Landau). Both men survived the horrors of Auschwitz, and in the present tense they live in the same nursing home, where Max has recruited Zev to act as his agent in a mission of vengeance. Max has discovered that the man responsible for killing his and Zev’s families in the camp resides in North America and under an assumed name: Rudy Kurlander—though by a terrible stroke of fortune there happen to be four men on the continent bearing that deceptive appellation. So Max, stuck in a wheelchair and hooked up to an oxygen tank, sends Zev out into the world to figure out which Rudy Kurlander is in fact their erstwhile tormentor and summarily execute him. It’s the best bad idea Max can possibly concoct given Zev’s mental fragility.
Remember sticks with Zev as he makes his way through the States and across the border into Canada in search of his quarry. It’s a fine enough premise for a movie; Zev suffers from dementia, and repeatedly throughout his journey has to stop and regain his bearings. He has a totem of sorts for that purpose, a letter from Max that he refers to when he finds himself lost in his own mind. If you need more reference points than Madsen or Tarantino, then regard Remember as Egoyan’s take on Memento by way of Hitchcock, who spent his career musing on matters of identity. We know who Zev is, though he forgets himself so often that we start to lose track of his selfhood too. Is this a man out to avenge his dead kin, or a doddering fogey who should have never set foot outside his assisted living facility?