REVIEW: “I Remember Me” Offers Plea, Document and Solace

Through interviews with herself, director Blake Edwards (a sufferer for over 15 years), World Cup soccer star Michelle Akers, disabled high school student Stephen Paganetti (he can't even sit up), and dozens of normal citizens who are surviving or have survived CFS (only 4 to 12% make full recoveries), Snyder engenders a complete picture of the physical hell the afflicted go through.

But it's the psychological torment that's so fascinating and disquieting here. Imagine displaying symptoms that every doctor has a different diagnosis for. Picture yourself wasting away, unable to lift your head off your pillow for months, while certain members of the AMA are insisting you're just being hysterical. You should be committed. You should stop playing games.

Snyder includes interviews with certain authorities that still take that stance. But she's also found dozens of experts who insist otherwise. She's additionally traveled to Lake Tahoe, Nevada, where between 1984 and 1986 over 300 people became acutely ill with a flu-like illness that was eventually named CFS.

But this was not the first outbreak. Snyder unearths evidence of mass complaints of similar symptoms in Punta Gorda, Florida (1956), Iceland (1949) and in Los Angeles (1934). (The flare-up didn't stop "It Happened One Night" from sweeping away its Oscar competitors that year and Shirley Temple from tapping home with an honorary statuette.)

One other matter helping to add emotional strife to CFS-sufferers is the name of their disease. Many interviewees feel "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" just doesn't sound serious. It's like calling cancer the "Big Bad Cell" or polio "Well, He Can't Breathe on his Own Now." Serious committees have actually formed since this film was completed to rename CFS. The monikers in the running include "Myalgic Encephalomyelitis," "Neuroendocrine Immune Disorder," "Polyalgic Asthenia," and "Ramsay's Disorder" after the British medical researcher.

CFS, even if you call it Charles Nelson Reilly, is an awful, debilitating infirmity that according to director Edwards often makes you feel "you're alone in your agony." "You also forget your former self," Snyder notes, when you could run and cook and work and love freely.

"I Remember Me," accordingly, serves as a powerful document, plea, and solace for those suffering from CFS, their family members and friends. It should also inform doctors and hopefully raise lots of money for further research.

As a documentary shot in 16mm and VHS, it was First Runner Up for an Audience Award at the 2001 Sarasota Film Festival and earned an Honorable Mention Golden Starfish Documentary Award at the 2000 Hamptons Film Festival. Solidly shot by Sam Counter, Lee Daniel, and Don Lenzer, and wisely edited by Paula Heredia, Snyder's high-grade effort will also interest and astound those who have no connection to CFS. And that adds to its true merits.