In “Memory Box,” there’s a moment when Alex (Paloma Vauthier), a Lebanese teenager living in Montreal, finds a series of old photographs of his mother Maia walking the streets of Beirut as a girl.Alex takes pictures of them with his iPhone and scrolls through them quickly to make the pictures magical A still image becomes a video.
Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige’s drama is full of beautiful seance-like moments like this. It’s about memories that are passed down through generations (even traumatic ones) take on new lives. On a snowy Christmas morning, Maia (Lim Turki) receives a box full of her diaries, photos and tapes that she sent to a friend in Paris in the 1980s.
As Alex rummages through the box against his mother and grandmother’s orders, he finds a whole life Maia never shared.
The mother-daughter relationship is pretty flimsy—a little overdone in this ambitious, generational film—but Hajithomas and Jorage make clever use of Maia’s archives to bring past and present together. Her notebooks and cassettes are based on Hajithomas’ actual letters and Joreige’s photographs of Beirut. As Alex sifts through the items, the director recreates the mechanics of memory transfer. Grainy photos turn into buoyant stop-motion animations that lead to pop-score flashback sequences.
However, when Maia gets excited and develops the 25-year-old film, the photos turn white. Memory, whether human or technological, has its limits. But by sharing them, you can discover them anew, as ‘Memory Box’ inspiringly demonstrates.
memory box
Unrated. English, French, Arabic, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. at the theater.
