A 1994 Italian-French drama thriller directed by Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso, Malèna) that has a famous author (Gérard Depardieu) suffering amnesia and an inspector (Roman Polański) trying to figure out what happened.
The movie also stars Sergio Rubini, Nicola Di Pinto, Tano Cimarosa, Paolo Lombardi, Maria Rosa Spagnolo, and Massimo Vanni.
It was released May 18, 1994.
Tropes for the film:
- Acrofatic: Onoff somehow manages to climb a tree despite his old age, heavy constitution and an injured leg. He is also shown capable of cliffhanging on a pipe for some time in spite of its slipperiness in the rain and its shabby condition, breaking itself apart just as he is desperately holding onto it.
- Ambiguous Situation: Played with. When Onoff and the inspector meet each other, the latter introduces himself as Leonardo da Vinci. It comes off as a joke. However, after the final story twist is revealed, things are not what they seem any longer, Onoff remembers this name and now it hits differently. Although, it still might have been just a joke.
- Bear Trap: Onoff gets his foot trapped in a bear trap. He manages to escape by stripping off his gumboot.
- Beard of Sorrow: Onoff usually never shaves off his beard and he has a long term depression.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: If, by the end of the movie, you believe the words of the inspector regarding his name, then his case is this trope.
- Blank Book: All books and papers in the police station are blank.
- Cowboy Cop: About a half of the policemen at the station behave like this. First they arrest Onoff for running in the rain, then they get him headbutted on the desktop while the inspector is deliberately looking the other way. But otherwise they seem to be good guys, so they are not rabid, just cowboys.
- Dead All Along: Onoff is dead after committing suicide, but only realizes this by the end of the movie.
- Empathic Environment: The storm and rain reflect Onoff's mood, as well as the lights going off and then on at the end after all things are sorted out, also the weather clarifies and the night passes.
- Ghost Amnesia: The interrogated hero can't remember what he did the evening before, because that's when he took his own life.
- It's a Small World, After All: Onoff is taken to a police station somewhere not very far from his country house where he meets an inspector who knows all his books, loves them and cites quotes from them all the time. This is really some surprising amount of attention Onoff gets for a jerkwater village they are in. The inspector has been a long time fan of Onoff and yet he seems not to have been aware that they were almost neighbours.
- One Phone Call: Onoff makes a huge fuzz about being denied his phone call.
- Room Full of Crazy: At one point, Onoff finds himself in a prison cell with walls full of scribblings.
- Somber Backstory Revelation: Onoff tells the inspector about his past and gets to remember quite a number of sad and grim moments of his life.
- "What Now?" Ending: The mystery gets solved, the twist is revealed, now what? What will become of Onoff? Where are they driving him to eventually? Perhaps it does not really matter, a pure formality.
- Wisdom from the Gutter: Onoff learnt a lot of things from a homeless man.
