Memory loss movies Suresh Kalmadi must watch

According to the Indian Express, “Former Commonwealth Games (CWG) Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi, lodged in Tihar Jail for over two months, may be suffering from dementia or memory loss — a factor that may affect his trial in the CWG scam.

Based on a direction from a Delhi court, Kalmadi underwent an MRI scan at the Lok Nayak Hospital last week. According to RN Sharma, Deputy Inspector General of Tihar, “Dementia at a preliminary stage was mentioned in the medical history submitted to jail authorities by his family members. However, this test was not specifically to check for memory loss — it was a routine test.”

Wikipedia helps us understand what dementia is.

“Dementia is a non-specific illness syndrome (set of signs and symptoms) in which affected areas of cognition may be memory, attention, language, and problem solving. It is normally required to be present for at least 6 months to be diagnosed;  cognitive dysfunction that has been seen only over shorter times, in particular less than weeks, must be termed delirium. In all types of general cognitive dysfunction, higher mental functions are affected first in the process.”

At the time of writing this piece, it was not established by the Lok Nayak Hospital’s tests whether Kalmadi indeed suffered from dementia and, if he did, at what stage the disease is in. Thankfully, the issue of memory loss is one that has been dealt with extensively by Hollywood; an Internet search throws up more than a hundred films that deal with memory loss — some short term, some long term. We shortlisted some films that Kalmadi, his lawyers and his medical advisors could have a look at to establish which best describes his affliction.

Memory loss is used in television commercials as well — Indian TV viewers will certainly remember one that we showcase here. Perhaps Kalmadi’s memory loss is akin to that one? Here you go, Kalmadi. All the film plots are courtesy Wikipedia.

50 first dates: One morning, Henry meets Lucy Whitmore (Barrymore), a local art teacher, in a café. They hit it off and agree to meet the next day, but when Henry returns, Lucy has no memory of him or their previous meeting. Pulling him aside to where Lucy cannot hear them, the café owner explains to Henry that, as a result of a car accident a year earlier, Lucy suffers from Goldfield Syndrome, a fictional form of anterograde amnesia in which each day’s events disappear from her memory overnight. She innocently believes every day to be the birthday of her father, Marlin, which happens to be the day of the accident. In order to shield her from the pain of repeatedly learning about the accident, Marlin and Lucy’s brother, Doug, re-enact the activities of Marlin’s birthday every day.

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The Majestic: During the early 1950s, Peter Appleton (Jim Carrey), an up-and-coming young screenwriter, is accused of being a Communist because he attended an anti-war meeting in college years before, a meeting he claims he only attended to impress a girl. In an instant, his new film is pushed back for a few months, the credit is given to someone else, his movie star girlfriend leaves him, and his contract with the studio is dropped.

His career in ruins, he gets drunk and accidentally drives his car off a bridge while trying to evade an opossum. When he wakes up, his memory is lost and he is in a small town called Lawson after being fished out by Stan Keller who takes him to the local doctor named Doc Stanton. The townsfolk believe him to be Luke Trimble, one of the town boys killed in World War II nine years before, and embrace him as a symbol of hope. “Luke” is at first mildly hesitant to embrace this life but he eventually settles in to “his old life”, and with his “father” Harry and his “girlfriend” Adele Stanton, starts to restore The Majestic theater, an old movie house that had been closed because of hard times.

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Memento: Memento is a 2000 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, adapted from his younger brother Jonathan’s short story, Memento Mori. It stars Guy Pearce as Leonard Shelby, a man with anterograde amnesia, which renders his brain unable to store new memories. During the opening credits, which portray the end of the story, it is shown that Leonard kills Teddy. The film suggests that this killing is vengeance for the rape and murder of his wife based on information provided by Natalie.

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Paycheck: In the near future, Michael Jennings is a reverse engineer; he analyses his clients’ competitors’ technology and recreates it, often adding improvements beyond the original specifications. To protect his clients’’ intellectual property and himself, Jennings undertakes a memory wipe to remove knowledge of his engineering with the aid of his friend Shorty.

Jennings is approached by his old college roommate, James Rethrick, the CEO of the successful technology company Allcom. Rethrick proposes a lengthy three-year reverse engineering job to Jennings, requiring him to live on Allcom’s secured campus until its conclusion but rewarding him handsomely with company stock. Jennings agrees, and after arranging for his long-term absence, arrives at Allcom, turns in his personal possessions, and is given a brief tour of the facility where he meets and flirts with botanist Dr Rachel Porter. He is injected with a long-term memory marker for the post-job memory wipe.

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The long kiss goodnight: Samantha Caine is a mother and schoolteacher with a seemingly normal life in the small town of Honesdale, Pennsylvania. However, she was found badly injured and suffering from amnesia eight years previously, and has no memory of her past. When she is attacked by an escaped convict, Samantha dispatches her attacker with lethal self-defence skills she was not aware she possessed. Throughout the years she hires a series of detectives to help her find the truth about her past until ending up with wisecracking, ethically challenged private investigator Mitch Henessey  who lucks into some vital information. She contacts the mysterious Dr Nathan Waldman who reveals that Samantha is really Charlene Elizabeth “Charly” Baltimore, an assassin for the CIA who went missing eight years ago. When Samantha is captured and tortured by her old enemy Daedalus, her real identity resurfaces. Although she initially disdains her life as ‘Samantha’, Mitch forces Charly to recognize that she actually liked her time as Samantha as it was the first time she was truly content with herself.

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The Forgotten: The movie revolves around a woman who thinks that she lost her son in a plane crash 14 months ago, only to wake up one morning and be told that she never had a son. All of her memories are intact but with no physical evidence that contradicts the claims of her husband and psychiatrist, she sets out in search for solid evidence of her son’s existence.

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The Bourne Identity: The _Bourne Identit_y is a 2002 American spy film loosely based on Robert Ludlum’s novel of the same name. It stars Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, a psychogenic amnesiac attempting to discover his true identity amidst a clandestine conspiracy within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This film is the first in the Bourne film series, being followed by The Bourne Supremacy (2004), and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). The fourth movie, The Bourne Legacy, is scheduled for release in July 2012.

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And, finally, we come to an Indian television commercial for makemytrip.com. It’s a great watch, and perhaps describes something akin to the memory loss Kalmadi suffers. You protagonist remembers the happy memories, but not the others.

View the commercial