A string of pearls ...

Rating: 6/10 (20 August 2001)

This interesting movie is about a man who can only remember stuff that happens within a minute due to an accident he had when some rapists were molesting his wife. The story shows us a man on a quest to revenge the death of his wife, but with a twist! The movie moves backwards in time although the sequential series of events that progress in clusters are in a normal timeframe moving forwards in time. This way of telling a story opens up the narration in such a way that new perspectives and surprises revels themselves at the beginning of each new cluster, thus creating a deeper understanding of the previous cluster / action. There seems to be a metatheme in this movie. The main character was a detective for an insurance company before his accident. Now the whole movie seems to follow the path such a detective would go by when investigating. Namely, starting out with the crime itself and working backwards untill the person who did it and the motive is found. This movie might also allude to the current state of our historical science, showing that memory, and especially history can be tampered with and changed (especially in the hands of less morally founded individuals). Thus one might even say it is a profound criticism of the all objectivity. Basically though, this is a thriller about manipulation in its different shapes and forms, and how people use each others weaknesses to outwit each other and sometimes even themselves....