The Alzheimer Case, the first Belgian film imported into China, is now being screened in cinemas across the country, and has received a warm welcome from movie-goers.

 

A pre-screening of the film for reporters was held in Beijing last Tuesday, two days before the crime thriller's national debut.

 

The film was Belgium's official entry for the best foreign film Oscar in 2004. When it was shown at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival, it was described by the event's official guide as "a chilling and visceral thriller of astonishing force."

 

The film swept across its native land in 2003, topping the box office, registering close to 750,000 admissions and grabbing five major awards at one of the country's most important movie festivals.

 

It has also been sold to more than a dozen countries, including Germany, France, Japan and the United States.

 

Bernard Pierre, Belgian ambassador to China, is very proud of the remarkable feats his compatriots have achieved.

 

"With a population of 10 million, Belgium has had 10 Nobel Prize winners and three Belgian directors have won the Gold Palm Award at the Cannes International Film Festival."

 

According to the ambassador, it was in 1896 that the first public film screening took place in Belgium. This triggered the rapid rise of the film industry.

 

But despite international acclaim for the Dardenne Brothers, two movie talents and two-time winners of the Palme d'Or, Belgian cinema remains under-appreciated. However, it lays claim to being one of the most diverse and creative in the whole of Europe.

 

According to the film's importer and distributor, the China Film Group, about 100 copies of The Alzheimer Case have been made and distributed in major cities in 23 provinces and municipalities.

 

The Alzheimer Case, or The Memory of a Killer as it is sometimes called, is chiefly concerned with memory. The genius of this story is that it is not only about one person's memory, but also about a nation's collective memory and the use of memory in crime investigation.

 

It all starts off simply enough. Vincke and Verstuyft are the best detective duo in the Antwerp police. When they are confronted with the murder of a top civil servant, they pull out all the stops to catch the perpetrator.

 

The trail leads to the aging contract killer Angelo Ledda, who wants to get out of the business because he is developing symptoms of the memory-destroying Alzheimer's disease. He agrees to one last job, killing two people in his native Belgium, but turns against his patron when he discovers one of them is a 12-year-old prostitute. His own memories and motives for being a killer now start to haunt him.

 

The homonymous novel by Jef Geeraerts on which the story is based was first published in the 1980s, but the film version of the story takes place in 1995.

 

(China Daily February 28, 2006)