Surprisingly incoherent and boring

A Disappointing Continuation

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

I think this is messy and out of focus. It tries to be too many things, and it fails to successfully achieve any of those.This wanted to be love story told through a different angle. It wanted to play with memory as a creator of reality, or something able to define a certain reality. It wanted to establish ambiguity over motivations and over who is controlling, who is bending the reality of what we see. It wanted to use sex, and sexually moved characters (above all females) as a cinematic glue to all this I can think of various films for each of the "wannabe" i mentioned that manage to be more successful in their objectives than this one. I don't know one film that does well in mixing all this. And if i come to find one, i don't think it will be made by the authors of this one. At least not for what i saw here.'Memento' played with the notions and the effects of short term memory, and memory loss much deeper. Here, we find the memory losses as the device to allow our character to become who his puppeteers want him to be. It is what it takes for him to be a puppet, to be unstable, to cast some doubt on who he is, what he wants. Noriega played the equivalent role in 'Abre los ojos', which was much more effective. I think for this purposes, 'Clean Slate' was a much better exploration of this!... Here we have links establish to monitoring our amnesic, the martial arts, the photos sessions, the block notes. But none of that is really used. The ending comes to unfold as a common romantic situation of gathering and decision on which woman the protagonist will elect (which you know who it is miles away from the ending). So it ends as the love story the film also wanted to be. The 'woman who loves the man accepting him for what he is' plot. It's ordinary, but it is given a new clothing, in order to look new. But if you stop and think, there's absolutely nothing worth mentioning about this story. If you want renewed fresh ways to join a love environment and the creation of alternative realities, try Medem. In 'Los amantes...', in 'Lucia y el sexo', in 'La ardilla roja'. He can do that. By coincidence (or not), here we even have Medem's Lucia (Paz Vega) as the wife of the sick protagonist who, in his moments of memory recovery comes to speak Spanish...Than we have the attempts to play with the forces controlling what we see. We know almost always as much as the main character. And practically every character (except the boy and the woman who loves the protagonist) have ambiguous intentions (apart from the fact that we take our time to understand where everybody fits, that's a good thing). We are given successions of facts we can't judge correctly. But than we come to understand that the film is moving nowhere, and what we see is what we get. No twist, no revelation, what it seems to be happening is really happening. It's not that we have to be deceived, but there should be some intention behind the idea of casting ambiguity in every corner of the stone. See 'Oldboy', if you want master work working these concepts.My opinion: 2/5 this is messy, but it has some interesting concepts, if you start imagining where this could go.http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com

I found this film enjoyably lightweight, like the sensation of discovering romance, a flirtation with potentially philosophical overtones that are serious enough to be enchanting but without being distracting.Graham has short term memory loss (groan! Is this a rip-off of Memento?) . . . but wait a minute, see if the style attracts you before we look at the substance.Fast-cutting shots (with almost a nod to À Bout de Soufflé) catch us effortlessly into the world that Graham and everyone around him has learnt to manage (He has a job doing photocopies in a large office). This is a world of romance and flirtation, but the women in his life are aware of his illness. Acknowledged influences include Japanese photography and Japanese bondage. The occasionally disjointed editing serves as a reminder of his mental state.I invite you to go back in time, to think of your first date with someone who later became very special (or who might have been). Think of that moment, if you will, before that first kiss. Isn't there that point on a date where you both know it's going to happen? You can almost sense what it will be like. You can imagine that first brush of the lips, their breath against your skin, before passion locks your two souls together! Their mouth approaches yours, tentatively. Can you almost feel the moment stretch out in time?A celebrated Japanese photographer, on the DVD featurette, explains how he uses objects to invade space and maintain continuity, extending intimacy beyond the instant of a still photograph. For Graham, that moment lasts a lifetime. He has to write notes to remind himself who he is in love with. His lover has the advantage that she knows his secrets, knows what turns him on, but can also delight in witnessing his newness, when each time is the first time. It's like a Groundhog Day in reverse, forever the thrill of the new.In the story, complications set in when Graham 'sleeps with other people'. He maintains his childlike innocence and tries to be a decent, moral chap (made harder by being dashingly good looking). The people around him are faced with losing their own 'innocence' and the ingenuous beauty that goes with that. It is their personalities, rather than his, that face the fall from Eden. The whole story is told with a realistic, inquisitive, and sometimes kinky sexuality. Nudity is used to create a sense of wonder instead of the titters so common in a British movie or the embarrassment in an American one. With superb acting throughout, we can't help but admire how wonderfully at ease the French are with their bodies.Novo does not have the impressiveness of Memento. Memento thought of the idea first. Novo is not a taut thriller. But it takes the device of short-term memory loss and uses it, even if it is with limited success, to say something that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Jean Pierre Limosin has taken on a story interlacing memory, love, history, and passion that not only has pertinence in our galloping society of hasty encounters and transient relationships but also pleads a case for people with cognitive dysfunction. Unfortunately the film is marketed as a comedy and while there are some curious incidents that cause a bit of nervous laughter, this viewer sees the work as more of a difficult struggle for those affected by mental malfunctions that affect not only the patient but also those who surround him.Graham/Pablo (the handsome and gifted Spanish actor Eduardo Noriega - 'Burnt Money', 'Abre los ojos', The Devil's Backbone', etc), though obviously bright and capable, works as a photocopy clerk for a large company, but suffers from memory loss, a deficit that prevents his remembering his wife Isabelle (Paz Vega) and son Antoine (Lény Bueno), his best friend Fred (Eric Caravaca), and his fellow coworkers. It also obscures his memory of flirtations and sexual encounters, including libidinous frequent seductions from his boss Sabine (Nathalie Richard). When a temporary worker Irene (Anna Mougalis) is hired Graham is told to show her the building and they end up on the roof in a passionate embrace - which of course Graham immediately forgets. But daily encounters with Irene gradually become so rich in passion that they somehow begin to register on Graham's tabula rasa mind condition! Graham's means of survival lies in the notebook attached to his wrist in which he keeps a diary of all events to remind him of each day's events. This 'artificial memory/identity' provides information for Irene, for Fred, and for his doctors and each of them has reasons to use this diary to their own ends: Fred while supportive of his friend is actually in love with Isabelle, and Irene finds evidence of Graham's affection for her that suggests to her a method of helping Graham restore his memory - and in doing so, possibly win his permanent allegiance to her.There are some bumpy portions of this film that create confusion at times, but in retrospect one wonders if this might have been the intention of the director - placing us as viewers into the mindset of short term memory loss to better understand Graham's plight! The cast is uniformly strong and Eduardo Noriega once again proves that he is completely capable of taking on a challenging role and finding the humanity within. Yes, there are some graphic sex scenes but they serve to intensify the flow of the story in view of the condition of Graham to whom every encounter has all the lust of a first encounter with an unknown lover! Recommended. Grady Harp

It's difficult to decide who or what is the target audience for this film. Jean-Pierre Limousin presumably had the chance to explore the problems of amnesia on a serious level and opted instead to use it as an excuse to make a soft-porn movie. Having seen, loved, admired and respected Se Souvenir des belles choses which explores memory loss - albeit as the result of Alzheimer's - in a profound and heartbreaking way, not least in the luminous performance of Isabelle Carre I find that Novo is an insult to Se Souvenirs. I have no problem with soft porn per se - and even if I had I'd virtually have to give up going to movies so prevalent is it today - but I do have a problem with writers/directors who attempt to respectablise it by cloaking it as here in the guise of medical research. The sad thing is that fine actresses like Julie Gayet - so wonderful in Clara et Moi - and Anna Mouglalis - who seems to have hit into a double play after last week's Le Deluge and now this - are wasting their time on dross like this.