The Memory Thief

Released into theaters just two months after yet another European writer -- in this case, Misha Defonseca -- admitted her autobiographical account of life during the Holocaust was a total fabrication, playwright-turned-filmmaker Gil Kofman's unusual story of a troubled young man who becomes obsessed with Jewish suffering under the Third Reich arrives with even greater resonance. Though not directly addressing the strange phenomena of false Holocaust remembrances, Kofman's complex film examines the need many people feel to identify with the intense experiences of others, be it audiences for movies like SCHINDLER'S LIST or writers like Defonseca, literary poachers of o...