a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

The sublime Marthe Keller - as Martha - quietly invokes the conscience of Germany with a therapeutic balm, even as she draws the old agony from the lost youth of War. She applies aloe vera, stinging but healing her new young neighbour Jo's gashed hand. The national wound is drawn together at last, as a beautiful relationship mends the two sides of history with a platonic Spring and Autumn romance, even as East and West Germany are falling into each other's arms through the Berlin Wall. Bruno Ganz gets to show us and Jo how his character is still possessed by Hitler's ghost, and how, as that demon is exorcised from Jo's dear grandad, all childhood illusions vanish. The old man's daughter, Jo's mother, is the defiant survivor of the ruins her father's generation left for her generation, with their defeat. However, scarred emotionally, she has inwardly shuddered for years at hearing her father obsessively tell over and over the one anecdote of the war whose unstable narrative has endlessly turned and twisted in the telling, as if to shake off the living nightmare of the truth. The holiday visit to their son turns chilly when, in the presence of Martha's implacable revulsion from all things German, the post-war period of structural and economic restoration suddenly looks like a time of shattered spirits. This collapse is written in the daughter's brittle expression, and in the inconsolable despair of her father. Jo's family leave for Germany, but, recoiling from the Hellish glimpse into the abyss of Hitler's Germany he for the first time sees in their souls, he remains on Martha's enchanted island of Ibiza, eventually putting these lingering horrors of Germany behind him as he builds a successful music career at the famous Ibizan dance club, 'Amnesia', and starts a family with a young girlfriend. It is hinted that the young couple do eventually go to live in Germany, where probably their new baby has been born, and that at some time Martha also returns, though briefly, possibly to sell her late father's house, to be able at last to buy her home in Ibiza and avoid her impending eviction. Martha then grows old as their friend, reconciled at last to all the best of Germany, the love of which had been destroyed during the experiences of her own youth. The final scene seems to suggest that the young family later returned to Martha's old house. Martha by this time may have become just the friendly spirit of the place, with the passage of time, as is perhaps evoked by a strange shot of her translucent image walking across the patio, with the aid of a stick, before the young family gathers round the presence - possibly imaginatively and lovingly recalled - of Martha's spirit, now at peace.Recovery from amnesia was effected by facing the cleansing pain in the soul. Only what is recalled can be truly forgiven, since forgetting - as Martha finally learns - is the antithesis of forgiveness. In old age, she is reunited with her true identity, redeemed by pity for the tortured survivors of her own country's catastrophe. At last, perhaps all the German exiles were able to go home.A tender, evocative and subtly rendered drama of troubled spirits being put to rest. Most critics trampled all over this delicately delineated life as intrusively and uncomprehendingly as the couples who came to view Martha's home, when it was about to be sold from under her by a new landlord, and whose insensitive attempts, as prospective buyers, to invite themselves in to poke around, she rightly rebuffed as an unfeeling intrusion. But at least these interlopers did appreciate the charm of the location. Most professional critics however are like brash tourists, who rush around with a lot of noise, noticing nothing, and complaining loudly. They should never be allowed into the secrets of such a wonderful film as this. They only ruin everything with their inane yet self-important chatter!A visit to the enchanted island of this lovely, delicate and yet powerful drama is wasted on such typically pretentious boors. They invariably 'break a butterfly upon a wheel' in the course of their hostile inquisitions.

In 1990, shortly after the reunification of East and West Germany, a young German deejay named Jo moves to live in Ibiza, hoping to find employment in the title nightclub there, along with his friends in the same business. He meets Martha, a mysterious elderly woman living alone in a house there, who turns out to have also be German, yet not willing to speak her native language or have any association with her native country. As a friendship between them develops, Martha finally admits her disdain for her former homeland came from seeing ugly secrets at the end of World War Two. Jo knows about them, but only through history classes and from recollections from his mother and grandfather.His career goals becoming achieved, his grandfather and mother come to visit for a dinner...but unsurprisingly conflict develops between them and Martha, and between Jo and his grandfather as he finally reveals his past. What will come of all this? Unfortunately the character development of the first part of the movie feels wasted. Martha and Joe and his relatives come across not as people, but different sides of "how should Germans react to their Nazi past" question. Everything else is anticlimactic after that scene, and the final scene of the movie only feels tacked-on rather than a resolution. The scenery is beautiful and the performances work, but the movie is still an overall letdown.

The best thing about Amnesia is the great acting by the two leads Marthe Keller and Max Riemelt. Very well done, she as Martha, he as Jo, the next door neighbor on Ibiza. They are both from Germany, and because of their age difference, they have different takes on the Nazis. Martha was just a young girl, and was so traumatized she had to leave and vowed never to speak the language again. Jo, much younger, knows some of the history, but has moved on, and doesn't have the shock, hatred and knowledge that Martha has. Things get more complicated when Jo's family shows up and of course when it comes out that they are all German, they only seem to be able to talk about WW II. Some (un-necessary) complications.... because Martha knows German but doesn't want to speak it, people keep feeling tricked by her, as she is eavesdropping on their conversations. Another reviewer here has already discussed the symbolism of "Club Amnesia" and the title of this film. Ibiza IS a nightclub village, after all. Jo is a DJ, trying to get his own mixes played. a few loose ends still hanging around, but the ending scene shows that everything worked out for the best. I'm glad we spent most of the film on the residential part of the island.... having been there, the downtown tourist area is way too crowded and it was great to see the part where people actually live. It was kind of fun to hear the mix of Spanish, English and deutsche. Directed by Barbet Schroeder, who used the same house in other films. AND... was actually owned by Schroeder's family. Good stuff. Showing on netflix.

Set on the island of Ibiza, Spain, in 1990, this latest movie from the acclaimed Swiss director Barbet Schroeder is a quiet yet absorbing drama.The two leads here Marthe Keller and Max Riemelt are both excellent in their roles of Martha and Jo respectively. Martha is an expatriate from Germany who has rented a house in Ibiza for years, overlooking the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. The much younger Jo, a native Berliner, has just moved in as Martha's neighbor, with aspirations of creating and playing his own techno music in the thriving local clubs.Despite the difference in their ages, there is an immediate chemistry and comfort level between the two. Martha, however, having left Germany in 1936, during the time of Hitler and the Nazis, has been so revolted by the actions of her countrymen during the war that she has refused to speak the German language to this day, has not returned to her native country, or used any products manufactured by the Germans such as VW's.On the other hand, Jo only has learned of the war and the Nazis through school and from filtered stories from his mother and grandfather. Thus he has the attitude of not dwelling in the past but moving forward, not only individually but for his native Germany as well. When Jo's mother and grandfather arrive in Ibiza from Berlin for a visit, some truths about the Nazi horrors will emerge, leading to changes for all concerned.There are two concurrent themes being played out in the movie. The first being that of a possible May-December relationship between Martha and Jo. The second being how some Germans choose to have selective amnesia about what really occurred during WW2 and want to just move on and leave all that for the history books.All in all, I found this to be a well acted, quiet, and cerebral film that I found myself engaged in from start to finish. It also has some wondrous cinematography of the Mediterranean Sea and surrounding areas.