You must remember this

A kiss might or might not be a kiss in the future

October 17, 2017 11:59 am | Updated November 11, 2017 03:26 pm IST

Memory provides a powerful space in the movies for flashbacks, amnesia and unreliable narrators galore. There have been characters remembering things differently from Rashomon to the underwhelming Girl On the Train and many in between. When it comes to science fiction, memory, apart from being a nifty narrative device, also serves as a marker for humanity.

PS I love you

Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) is a sweetly-optimistic rom-com set in a future when it is possible to erase memories. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet star as lovers past, present and future Joel and Clementine. As the memories of his relationship are being wiped, Joel realises that he shared good as well as bad times with Clementine. The title incidentally is from a poem by Alexander Pope — that is how literate the film is!

 Kate Winslet (left) and Jim Carrey (right) star in Michel Gondrys 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,'  a Focus Features release.  (AP Photo/David Lee)

Kate Winslet (left) and Jim Carrey (right) star in Michel Gondrys "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," a Focus Features release. (AP Photo/David Lee)

While Joel and Clementine decide to give themselves another chance despite Clementine’s warning that they might break up again, technology helps Liam wreck his marriage in The Entire History of You . The deeply-disturbing episode from the first season of the British science fiction anthology Black Mirror, is set in a time when most people have a grain implanted which records and enables them to replay or “redo” their lives — from parties to appraisal interviews to sex. Liam suspects his wife Ffion of being unfaithful and through her memories is able to prove that she was. However, the nature of memories is such that it can be manipulated. Technology can only record, it cannot analyse or separate fact from fantasy — as one of the characters says, therapy can make one remember a non-existent paedophile babysitter as the cause of all that is wrong with you today.

Into the darkness

Jason Bourne woke up in the Mediterranean with bullets in his back with amnesia and no memory of who he is leading to a very profitable franchise. In Alex Proyas’ exquisite Dark City (1998) John Murdoch wakes up in a bathtub with a bloody, mutilated corpse and no memory of how he got there. The visually-stunning film speaks of a dying alien parasitic race living on humans and studying their memories to protect themselves. Every night as the humans sleep, the aliens feed different memories to their hosts in a stunning sequence. Murdoch wakes before the imprinting (of a serial killer’s memories) could be completed.

The Matrix (1999) using a similar colour palate and concept became hysterically popular and buried Dark City under the weight of bending spoons, rabbit holes and a blank faced Neo. Déjà vu, when Neo sees the black cat again, is explained as a glitch in the system and not as Joseph Heller said in Catch 22 , “It was neither déjà vu, presque vu nor jamais vu.” Christopher Nolan is said to have referenced Dark City as well as The Matrix when he wrote Inception .

KEANU REEVES stars in Warner Bros. Pictures' and Village Roadshow Pictures' provocative futuristic action thriller THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS, also starring Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss.

PHOTOGRAPHS TO BE USED SOLELY FOR ADVERTISING, PROMOTION, PUBLICITY OR REVIEWS OF THIS SPECIFIC MOTION PICTURE AND TO REMAIN THE PROPERTY OF THE STUDIO. NOT FOR SALE OR REDISTRIBUTION.

KEANU REEVES stars in Warner Bros. Pictures' and Village Roadshow Pictures' provocative futuristic action thriller THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS, also starring Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss. PHOTOGRAPHS TO BE USED SOLELY FOR ADVERTISING, PROMOTION, PUBLICITY OR REVIEWS OF THIS SPECIFIC MOTION PICTURE AND TO REMAIN THE PROPERTY OF THE STUDIO. NOT FOR SALE OR REDISTRIBUTION.

I remember, therefore I am

Memories are used to distinguish between human beings and robots. While in Terminator 3 , the T850 remembers to look for the car keys in the sunvisor, other movies including the recent Blade Runner 2049 show androids do not have organic memories. Ryan Gosling’s replicant K poignantly says “I have memories, but I can't tell if they are real.” The movie goes behind the scenes to memory maker, Dr. Ana Stelline’s lab, where she says, “Every memory has a piece of its artist…” Harrison Ford’s Deckard in the original Blade Runner (1982) cruelly tells the replicant Rachel her memory of a spider spinning a web is an implant.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER AND SHARON STONE IN THE ENGLISH FILM 'TOTAL RECALL'.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER AND SHARON STONE IN THE ENGLISH FILM "TOTAL RECALL".

Blade Runner is based on Philip K Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ?, which brings us to the PKD short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” which was the basis of Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 film Total Recall and the 2012 remake. The short story told of a time in the future when you could have memory implants of holidays and other exciting things instead of actually doing them. An office worker tired of his boring life decides to get a memory implant of a dangerous mission on mars. However as he undergoes the procedure, he realises that he actually is a secret agent with his memory wiped. The movie is very loosely based on the short story and since it starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, the protagonist was a construction worker rather than an office drone.

This film image released by Columbia Pictures shows Jessica Biel, right, and Colin Farrell in a scene from the action thriller 'Total Recall.'  (AP Photo/Columbia Pictures - Sony, Michael Gibson)

This film image released by Columbia Pictures shows Jessica Biel, right, and Colin Farrell in a scene from the action thriller "Total Recall." (AP Photo/Columbia Pictures - Sony, Michael Gibson)

If movies are modern myth-makers, it is not surprising that memories are an important ingredient of the process.

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