La Mémoire Courte (1979) aka Short Memory

I put off writing about this one for a few days, because it is a rather difficult nut to crack. This is not to say that Short Memory, directed by Argentine expat Eduardo de Gregorio (Gregorio previously worked on the scripts for Rivette's Céline and Julie Go Boating, and Duelle; Rivette himself makes a cameo in this film) is a difficult film to watch; on the contrary, it is a labyrinthine and pulse-pounding thriller about hunting down ex-Nazis and their associates, but unlike many films of this distinct sub-genre, its heroes are just as morally compromising as its villains (and are they even really villains?). Judith Mesnil is a translator who works for UNESCO, and has just been tasked with collecting and sorting through the writings of a late writer, who was working on publishing a book about Latin American Nazi smugglers when he died in a mysterious car accident. She becomes curious, and decides to investigate. Soon, Judith meets Frank Barila, who also has quite the interest in tracking down these individuals, and it is not long before Judith is sucked into something that may consume her. Short Memory is a rather Borgesian film in nature, it has that lucid, yet distorted quality that many of Borges' stories have, and much of the plot is revealed through various documents that Judith sifts through. Gregorio's film is moody, sombre, and gray. The mood is Melvillian at times, but perhaps even more low-key. Bulle Ogier makes an appearance as the serpentine mistress and cohort of the ringleader of the Nazi smuggling gang, and is perhaps the most terrifying of the various characters, the only truly evil one. One reviewer described her as a kind of Eva Peron like figure, and she does indeed resemble Evita a great deal. It fits in with Gregorio's indulging in the often-times true mythology of Nazis in Latin America. What haunted me most, though, was the morally compromising nature of our "heroes", who are really fighting to avenge people just as bad as those who killed them. Many films feature complicated anti-heroes, but these characters are ordinary, everyday, common folk. That is far scarier.