Although the human brain is facing fierce competition from the likes of AI, it has served humankind well over time.

One of its most complex tasks is the ability to remember; memory works through a three-step process – encoding, storing and retrieving, which allows us to recall events that have happened to us in the past. But with the passing of time, this ability can become less reliable, as this Japanese film illustrates.

England, 1982, and Niki (Camilla Aiko) is leaving London to visit her old family home. Only her mother Etsuko (Yō Yoshida) lives there now, and has decided to put it on the market and move out.

Niki recently wrote a piece for a newspaper, and they’re keen for her to write another one, but focusing on her own experiences, especially how her family came to move to England.

This means that she gets to sit down with her mother, and explore her past, with her living in Nagasaki in 1950’s Japan.

Based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1982 novel of the same name, Kei Ishikawa’s film is an exploration of memory, and its ability to re-write history.

It flits back and forth between two timelines, united by the character Etsuko, present (Yoshida) and past (played by Suzu Hirose).

Horose’s Etsuko is represented by a fragile form of elegance; she lives in a housing estate with her husband, in the early terms of pregnancy. She’s meets a young woman, Sachiko (played by Fumi Nikaido), who is leaving the country soon with her young daughter, to move to the USA with a soldier she has met.

At the same time, the couple find themselves hosting her hubby’s father Ogata (Tomokazu Miura), and with his son not interested in spending time with him, Etsuko finds herself doing that.

With the Japanese director’s vision, despite the older Etsuko describing her life in 1950’s Japan, the flashbacks, on the surface at least, have her more of a spectator of all the lives around her. Her interaction is minimal, and her telling her daughter the story of others is a curious one.

There is more to her story than meets the eye, as we discover, admittedly late on, which is a little too jarring; it seems top heavy in that respect, and if you think the process of memory is impressive, you may find your grey matter under a fair amount of pressure processing what has been going on for the last two hours.

Still, there are some wonderfully poetic performances, mainly from the utterly mesmerising Hirose, whose Etsuko has to navigate the murky waters of her past life. The cinematography is also well crafted, with 1950’s Japan brought to life with a satisfying amount of chic.

It may not fall into place for everyone, as the way the story emerges is on the esoteric side. It may just be a case of the written word possibly not being adapted perfectly for the big screen, with its themes of memory losing a fair bit in translation. Which is a shame, if that is indeed the case, as Ishikawa’s somewhat clumsy execution, will sadly be remembered for all the wrong reasons.