10 Must-See Films About Memory

"Memory - like cinema, in Andrei Tarkovsky's conception of the form - can be seen as a kind of "sculpting in time". In such an understanding of the term, the process of remembering is less like taking books from a neatly ordered library shelf and more like an act of creation in and of itself, a complex pulling of threads to produce an image that is true only insofar as it expresses something deep about its maker's subconscious."

"Child slavery, suicide, elder abuse: Kenji Mizoguchi's period epic of an aristocratic family brought low is dark in ways modern-day edgelords can only dream of. The story turns on the separation of a young governor's wife from her children, Zushiō and Anju, who are sold as slaves to a local jitō (steward), Sansho. The kids were raised to be good by their kind-hearted father, who was forced into exile when they were young, but soon the years pass and Zushiō learns the cruel indifference"

"We've all felt that question arise as to whether a memory is real or somehow counterfeit, drawn either from stories that we tell or the ones we get from family or friends, books or the screen. Many of the best films about memory acknowledge this ambiguity, the absoluteness of the image and its paradoxical unreliability, to convey something of its magic."

Memory is framed as a sculptural, cinematic process in which remembering constitutes an act of creation that yields images expressing the maker's subconscious. Recollection appears ambiguous, sometimes indistinguishable from invented narratives drawn from family, stories, books, or screens. Films about memory often embrace the tension between the image's apparent absoluteness and its paradoxical unreliability to evoke memory's magic. Kenji Mizoguchi's period epic about an aristocratic family's fall portrays child slavery and moral cruelty, with a song functioning as a recurring refrain that summons a character's humanity while steering another toward darkness. Chris Marker's La Jetée reflects on memory's scars and remembrance.

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