Unlike "Memento," the 2003 Belgian film "Memory of a Killer" is not about a struggle with failing memory, even if the original title was "The Alzheimer Affair" - not a potential box-office draw. The main character, Ledda (played with self-effacing brilliance by Jan Decleir), does have the onset of Alzheimer's, and he writes names of his future victims on his arm, but if you took that element away, the story would remain virtually the same.
Initially, that story is about an international mafia operation in Antwerp, including child prostitution on its agenda. Decleir's character - an aging, but impressively professional killer, who is flesh-and-blood real, far from the typical Hollywood caricature - runs up against an order to kill a 13-year-old girl. In crime syndicates, assignments are not optional, so Ledda is now pitched against his former colleagues and bosses, in a desperate run for survival.
It is at that point the film's real nature emerges, a variation on "The Fugitive," a lone man against overwhelming forces, but with a unique twist: Ledda is no hero, in fact he is a super-villain, and yet director Erik Van Looy's work of honesty and integrity, and Decleir's performance put the audience squarely in the killer's corner.
The reason: he is fighting not only for survival, but against a major collusion between crime bosses and government officials, making the work of the honest police official Vincke (played by Koen De Bouw) quite impossible.
It is the reluctant and indirect collaboration between Ledda and Vincke, two individuals - a cop and a killer - against a mighty machine, that gives "Memory of a Killer" its focus and zing.
There is something very puzzling about the presentation of this film. Anyone with even a passing exposure to world news may well remember that there was a huge scandal in Belgium just a few years ago over exactly the same scenario: child prostitution and a government cover-up that went up to the highest ranks, busted open finally by a few honest cops (and even an intervention from the king). And yet, in all the studio literature, there isn't a single mention of a possible connection, and when specifically asked, a spokesperson for US presenter Sony said the film "has no relationship whatsoever to the Belgian scandal." Strange, indeed.
Initially, that story is about an international mafia operation in Antwerp, including child prostitution on its agenda. Decleir's character - an aging, but impressively professional killer, who is flesh-and-blood real, far from the typical Hollywood caricature - runs up against an order to kill a 13-year-old girl. In crime syndicates, assignments are not optional, so Ledda is now pitched against his former colleagues and bosses, in a desperate run for survival.
It is at that point the film's real nature emerges, a variation on "The Fugitive," a lone man against overwhelming forces, but with a unique twist: Ledda is no hero, in fact he is a super-villain, and yet director Erik Van Looy's work of honesty and integrity, and Decleir's performance put the audience squarely in the killer's corner.
The reason: he is fighting not only for survival, but against a major collusion between crime bosses and government officials, making the work of the honest police official Vincke (played by Koen De Bouw) quite impossible.
It is the reluctant and indirect collaboration between Ledda and Vincke, two individuals - a cop and a killer - against a mighty machine, that gives "Memory of a Killer" its focus and zing.
There is something very puzzling about the presentation of this film. Anyone with even a passing exposure to world news may well remember that there was a huge scandal in Belgium just a few years ago over exactly the same scenario: child prostitution and a government cover-up that went up to the highest ranks, busted open finally by a few honest cops (and even an intervention from the king). And yet, in all the studio literature, there isn't a single mention of a possible connection, and when specifically asked, a spokesperson for US presenter Sony said the film "has no relationship whatsoever to the Belgian scandal." Strange, indeed.