Mnemophrenia

UK / UK • 2019 • 78m •

• Directed by: Eirini Konstantinidou. • Starring: Freya Berry, Robin King, Tim Seyfert, Tallulah Sheffield, Jamie Laird, Robert Milton Wallace, Dominic O'Flynn, Angela Peters, Anna Brook, Michael Buckster, Gary Cargill, Steve Hope Wynne, Lisa Caruccio Came. • Music by: Corey Zack.

Three intertwining stories explore the effects of mnemophrenia whose main symptom is the involuntary blending of real and artificial memories, creating an identity crisis. The three main characters who live in different time periods, all placed in the future, are connected in three ways: by blood; by the condition itself, since they are all mnemophrenics; and by their shared interest in the ways that technology affects the human condition.

Review:

Theoreticians, futurists, and sci-fi fans will rejoice after collective immersion in the wonderfully dense "Mnemophrenia," a film that anticipates a near-term medical condition identifying the mind's inevitable blurring of truths between organically-lived experiences and those realized through ongoing exposure to virtual reality. Imagine, for example, learning that a man you knew throughout early life wasn't ever real, yet his virtual construct positively informed you to live your most fully realized existence: Would you feel total invalidation, or total gratitude? These are the types of heavy-as-an-anvil suppositions this terrifically ambitious film puts forth in what could soon become a shockingly prophetic piece of cinema.

"Mnemophrenia" isn't just philosophically sharp without the on-screen chops to back it up. This is a somewhat ingenious slab of filmmaking, cleverly crafted by deploying the camera as an all-seeing computer eye moving between a series of vignettes, all set in various future stages. The computer captures two lab techs as they debate the ethics of a large-scale mnemophrenic state in which virtual experiences aid or falsely influence (depending on which side of the debate you're on) all life experiences. Elsewhere, the camera documents a therapy session in which subjects process aloud various mnemophrenic epiphanies. In a further future, the camera serves as the mind's eye of a woman with an embedded chip in her brain, recording and interpolating her living moments until it quite literally embodies a hardware version of her true self. When she's diagnosed with a fatal illness, something resembling a downloadable, posthumous eternity is promised for both her and her partner.

This is a film presenting high-level theory with a shrewd attenuation to grass roots, solution-driven filmmaking, and it's a combination that makes for great storytelling. Turn off your phone and clear your mind going in, as "Mneophrenia" very attractively offers head candy by informing, theorizing, and challenging in equal parts. Highly recommended, and sure to provoke exhaustive water cooler debate in its aftermath. - (Was this review of use to you? If so, let me know by clicking "Helpful." Cheers!).

Review by TheAll-SeeingI from the Internet Movie Database.

Release Anniversaries

Movie Database

Movies By Year: