The Memory of a Killer (De Zaak Alzheimer) - Erik Van Looy

ne avevo letto qui, mi sembrava un bel film, poi l'ho visto ed è bellissimo.
ambientato ad Anversa, la cui stazione è anche qui.
c'è un killer che si chiama Angelo Ledda (figlio di emigrati sardi, penso io), un barone belga molto delinquente (brutta gente, i baroni del Belgio, anche quel delinquente dell'eternit era un barone belga), un poliziotto che crede ad Angelo, una sceneggiatura che è un meccanismo perfetto, attori bravissimi, un regista che sa il fatto suo, una storia che ti prende e non ti lascia più.
insomma, un film imperdibile - Ismaele  

…è anche il blues sofferto e intimo del sicario Angelo Ledda, minato dalla malattia come un vecchietto qualsiasi e restituito dal regista nella sua più profonda umanità. bel personaggio, Angelo Ledda: uno che ha ucciso il padre a diciassette anni, che non esita a far fuori rampolli mafiosi e pervertiti, la feccia con il nome ingombrante che occupa gli uffici che contano, ma non toccherebbe mai una ragazzina. è un uomo con un codice d’onore: uno melvilliano, fuori tempo massimo…

da qui

The hit man has Alzheimer's. The concept isn't just high, it's stratospheric. If Belgium were Hollywood, The Memory of a Killer would be ubiquitous. Instead you're going to have to search for this extraordinary movie in a theater that is probably nowhere near you. Please do so. It is, without question, the best crime movie of the year--and one of the best movies of any sort now playing…

da qui

 …The story is about a professional hit-man who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. He isn't able to remember any details, so he writes everything down on his arm. When he's hired to kill a 12 year old girl who was the victim of pedophiles, he doesn't do his job, but goes after the bad guys.

If a Spanish or French director made this movie, this would have been a huge success all over the world. Now the movie went by rather unnoticed. OK, here it was a huge success, but I'm sure that most people in other countries haven't heard of it before. Still this may well be called one of the best movies in Belgian history. It's true that it has a big American feeling, but that didn't bother me once and I heard that Hollywood is planning a remake of this movie, so Van Looy must have done something right…

da qui

… Originally titled "The Alzheimer Case," this mnemonically minded film opens as two separate stories — one involving an idealistic young cop, the other an older hardbitten assassin — that clue by clue, break by break, eventually twist together. Directed by Erik Van Looy and adapted by Carl Joos and Mr. Looy from a novel by Jef Geeraerts, the film features a range of good guys and bad whose sense of morality and world weariness seem straight out of a Jean-Pierre Melville film.

da qui

…As the plot of "The Memory of a Killer" leads into a labyrinth of decadence and obscurity, one murder connects to another, and desperate men take risky measures. Old Angelo is the wild card, sought by both sides, working in the shadows, hiding out in places remembered from his childhood in Antwerp. He knows his way around. He realizes that, one way or another, he is on his last job. And that makes him doubly dangerous because he has nothing to lose but his life, which is slipping away anyway.
Watch Jan Decleir's performance. He never goes for the easy effect, never pushes too hard, is a rock-solid occupant of his character. Everything he has to say about Angelo is embodied, not expressed. By the end, we care so much for him that the real suspense involves not the solution of the crimes but simply his well-being…

da qui