What Now? Remind Me (2013) New York Film Festival 2013

Waiting for the movie to end

What Now? Remind Me is the chronicle of a year in the life of filmmaker Joaquim Pinto and his husband as he begins a course of treatment to keep his HIV and Hepatitis C under control. Its a chronicle of the effects of the drugs, trips to his farm, speaking engagements for his films, the battles with wild fires and remembrances of friends and his life told in a rambling style.

Where to begin?

Would it be wrong to say that seeing this 2 hour and forty five minute vanity project  about which I don't have a clue? No that's not true I do have one, this movie is too fucking long. I was with the film for about half the running time and then suddenly sometime just before the sex (If you didn't know there is graphic sex in this film. I'm not being a prude here, rather I'm stating  something that the festival people haven't mentioned, which they probably should in light of their warnings about Stranger by the Lake) I disconnected and started to wonder where this was all going.

Essentially what happens is that Pinto begins to lose his ability to hold on to reality or the moment (the drugs force him to have to force himself to do things) the film breaks down. There is no cohesive anything just a series of random events. While I completely understand that the film is suppose to mirror Pinto's state of mind, after a while, and well before its almost three hours are up, the film becomes taxing. Its as if someone ripped the film out of the bin where good films lay and tossed it into the self indulgent crap pile. A fine self portrait becomes self indulgent.

I'm sorry if that offends but it's true and it's earned.  If you look at my notes for the film the brief entries for the first part of the film are glowing admiring how the film explains things, it manipulates images and gives a sense to the illness and the drug effects. However after a certain point the film collapses as events seem to have been tossed on the screen and we get some selfies of Nuno, Pinto's husband, that just don't seem to fit. Why are we looking at this footage that Nuno shot of himself when in theory this is Pinto's story?

Okay yes it's a self portrait, but at the same time while its something I don't mind glancing at I don't need to stare at all of the material that was added to make this so damn long. You wouldn't want to watch your neighbors home movies and even if you did, odds are you wouldn't want to pay money to.

This is one you can probably miss