Movie Review: Anna (2013)

“Memories can’t be trusted but it’s all the truth we have.” Based on a true story... Just kidding. This flick isn’t based on anything real. If it were, we’d all be so far up shit creek I can’t even think of a funny punchline.

Anna is a present day story but in this reality, the world has something called Memory Detectives. There are certain people who can enter the memories of others. This is particularly helpful when trying to solve crime. Granted, the found memories don’t hold a lot of weight in court (which they tell us a bazillion times) as DNA is truly the best evidence but they can play key roles in finding out hidden truths.

John is one of these detectives. His boss, Sebastian, brings him in on an old case involving a young girl named Anna. Sebastian treated her years ago, when she was just barely out of knickers (or whatever the female equivalent is of a boy from the 1920s) but could not help her. She’s now gone on a hunger strike and her parents are desperate.

Movie Review: The Man Who Lies (1968; Kino Lorber/Redemption Films)

...what's that old saying?? Something about a 'tangled web one weaves, when one practices to deceive'? Consider the pathological liar: The tales rendered, often outrageous and dazzling...even manipulative...though with an element of truth, which genuinely supports the fantasique fervor of the story told. Favorable focus on the storyteller...even to the point of 'superhuman' empowerment, or an incredibly sheltered naivete; they are the hero in their tales, or perhaps the hapless, unknowing victim. The surprisingly keen ability to weave a fantastical, seemingly supportive tale, right on the spot, given the clear urgency of the situation...though, that's where that aforementioned 'tangled web' comes into play, when the story becomes so convoluted with falsehood, it begins to fray, and come unraveled. And of course, there's the motive...the 'hanging carrot' clockwork reasoning that drives the recipient listener of the complex and intricate fabrication into potentially believing the manipulative teller of the tale...

...in director Alain Robbe-Grillet's brazenly artful, enigmatic and self-telling 1968 mystery/drama, "The Man Who Lies"...a joint French/Czechoslovakian production...does the film's mysterious and manipulative protagonist, rightly fit the definition, as suggested above?? Or is there method to the ensuing madness, as enigmatically depicted in the following 'tangled web' proceedings??...