Marco Bazzi’s thriller Reflections of a Broken Memory invites the viewer along on a deep dive into the mind of a man named Jay (Raphael Sikic) who can’t remember how his lover was murdered, nor how he came to be on his knees in his front yard pointing a gun at his own head. Flashback to the funeral of his sister, Judie (Sandy Mölling), where Jay introduces his lover (Eric Newcombe) to his mother Jennifer (Helene Udy). Jay’s life with his sister and mother has been tense and full of fear.
Back in the present, the police are interrogating Judie’s therapist, Dr. Ralph Rivers (Mark Vidano). He is describing sessions with Judie where she talks about Jay’s emotional disturbances as a child. Jay’s amnesia is obscuring critical information for the investigation. Detective Suarez (Gladise Jiminez) and Dr. Rivers work together to unlock Jay’s memories. Suarez interrogates Jay, with an earpiece so that she can hear Dr. Rivers, who is obscure in another roomn, as he guides her into talking Jay into opening his mind. Jay sees the detective in the person of his sister as she talks to him. The images that surface are disjointed non-sequiters around the night of the murder, and scenes from his traumatic childhood. .
” … Jay how can’t remember he came to be on his knees pointing a gun to his own head …”
Reflections of a Broken Memory moves back and forth in time, with aggressive quick edits. Jay’s childhood trauma and the terrible relationship with his mother have broken his mind. This makes the sequence of events difficult to follow, to put it mildly. 30 minutes in, the viewer is lost in a fog of fractured time and images. As a result, the film winds up being more about atmosphere and the highlights of performances than it is about the story being told.
The confusion is exacerbated by the languid pace, which is frustratingly unhurried. The proxy interrogation of Jay takes up much of the film. The breadcrumbs needed to put together the facts of what happened come slowly and it requires great patience from the viewer to connect the dots, and even then, there are reveals at the end that one could not have predicted.
The layers of disjointed fragments are not made any clearer by Dr. Rivers’ breathlessly intoned psychobabble. It is impossible to discern what is in-universe real from what is only in Jay’s mind. The performances from all are solid, heavily dramatic, and dark, but it is a slog to get through the nearly two hours runtime. Once we get to the denouement and all secrets are unveiled, the viewer will have to decide for themselves if it was worth the time.
"…solid, heavily dramatic, and dark"
