Ghajini is Indian movie which is similar to Memento.According to the movie, the protagonist Sanjay Singhania's (Aamir Khan) is suffering from anterograde amnesia. so he tattoos himself and takes notes and pictures of everybody he meets in daily life in order to recall that person again and if he doesn't remember you which he wont, he will remove his pile of pictures from his pocket and try to see if he knows you. Sanyay's anterograde condition kicks in every 15 minutes, which means he remember things for a limited time frame of 15 minutes only. His memory needs refreshing after that time limit, therefore the tattoos, the scribbled notes and the Polaroid shots. He doesn't actually remember his girl Asin's - death. He comes to know of it when he reads the tattoos on his body every morning after he wakes up.Now here start the list of questions: How does he remember to read or write out those notes? How does he remember to take Polaroid pictures? How is anterograde amnesia different from amnesia and how are the two different from Alzheimer's, which also causes memory loss? Most importantly, if the guy can't remember anything beyond 15 minutes, how the heck does he remember he has anterograde amnesia? Of course, he has his scribbled notes and tattoos to rely on when he gets up in the morning, but he does spend quite some time outside his house spells that go far beyond 15 minutes, trying to track down the killer. so if you are his enemy and he tries to kill, just run away for 15 minutes and comeback , he wont even know you. Here is a clip from the movie.
Ghajini memory loss
I had not heard of this movie before you wrote about it here Dek but it does sound a lot like Memento. You ask some interesting questions about antereograde amnesia which I will try to answer but I am by no means an expert. Also, every person with this problem might have slightly different deficits depending on their brain injury.
Also, it is a movie and many symptoms might be conveniently changed in order to better tell the story.
It seems that the notes and tatoos are simply visual cues that cause him to think about his past experiences that he can no longer remember. He doesn't have to remember to look at his arm, but simply sees the images there and his mind reflects on what they mean.
He can remember how to do many things like take pictures, tie his shoes or answer the phone because he learned those things before his amnesia. Anterograde amnesia is the inability to encode new memories, so he will not be able to put things like meeting a new person, the name and face can remain in STM for a few seconds, into LTM, so that he will recognize and remember the person later. The tattoos and notes are a way to compensate. It is a little unrealistic unless he lives next to a tattoo parlor and can get the memory inscribed before it is lost.
Anterograde amnesia is a more specific type of memory loss where Alzheimer's is a more general decay in overall brain function that leads to death.
I believe the part about him recalling he has anterograde amnesia is fiction. He might have a sense that something is wrong with him but he should not know or remember the nature of his condition because any doctor or person that informed him of it would have had to take place after his injury.
Reading your review of the movie definitely reminded me of the movie called 50 First Dates with Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler. At the end the two get married and at the beginning of everyday, Sandler shows her a video of there past events together like getting married and having a baby! I think this would just be so tragic to wake up every morning and realize you had no recollection of what someone was showing you, you did. I guess the wife had a time span of amnesia for one day at a time.
I think you brought up some very good points that producers and editors forgot to consider when creating a movie like this. It does not seem possible that he would instinctively "know" to take a picture of everyone and even to check his picture stack when he met someone "new." Seems like an interesting movie but based on false psychological phenomena.