Film

User reviews of this film

• Knuckles5150 said...

  Posted on Jan 19 2009 13:00 Written by Jonathan Nolan, this was the first spectacular film of 2001. I have never had a piece of film noir that left me as refreshingly confused as Memento. Director, Christopher Nolan, steps out of the ordinary even for a noir piece of work. We sit back expecting to view a typical dark and shadowy noir film, but we suddenly find ourselves following the scenes backwards in succession all the way to the “beginning.”
  In this unique style of storytelling, Nolan opens up with Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce, L.A. Confidential) shaking a Polaroid, in rewind, of a blood splattered wall. The first 2 minutes of the film moving backwards lets on to the idea of the story being told in reverse. Leonard had a career as an insurance investigator, but now puts forth endless effort to a just and noble cause; a quest to avenge his wife’s (Jorja Fox, CSI) rape/murder. Amidst the fiasco, his wife’s assailants struck him with a damaging blow to the head; this left his memory as something to be desired so that he could only remember a few moments into the past. Every time Leonard wakes up, he has to start over again on his pursuit for vengeance. And because of this audacious and chronologically reversed screenplay, we too as the viewer are left trying to piece together this murder/mystery as soon as the last credit fades from the screen in the beginning.
  Mass confusion sets in on Leonard as he wakes up every morning to countless letters, post-its and photos that resemble his unknown past. Each morning he walks past the mirror and each morning he rediscovers a canvas of tattoos covering his entire body (for example: “John G raped and murdered your wife”); these markings tell the story from the time his wife was brutally killed up to the last few confusing moments he remembers.
  Along his epic journey to find justice or any resemblance thereof, Leonard has a couple of people whispering in his ear as to which move to make next. Teddy (Joe Pantoliano, Bad Boys), befriends Leonard in somewhat of a suspicious way with his quick babble and car-salesman like grin. Popping up at the most opportune times, Leonard cautiously accepts Teddy’s self-seeking insights. Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss, The Matrix) warms up to Leonard quickly because she shares similar dismal circumstances that occurred in her recent past. Sympathetically, Natalie helps Leonard make sense of his scribbled words and the black ink spread across his skin. With Leonard just losing someone, he is very tender and susceptible to the soft touch and kind words of a beautiful woman.
  A little glimpse into the reality of amnesia is demonstrated as Leonard interacts with Burt, the hotel clerk (Mark Boone Junior, Batman Begins), that rents him a room while he is on his venture. Burt adds a small slice of humor to the film, but in the long run we see he is just looking to cash in on Leonard’s defective memory. Leonard soon becomes aware that Burt is charging him to stay in two rooms, but pays him no mind because his dishonesty is obsolete compared to the villain still at large.
  Each time we move ahead to the scene chronologically before the one we’ve just seen, we see Leonard become more and more amateurish in his ability to decipher truth. We can only play detective throughout the film and piece together bits to the puzzle as to, not who, but why all this is happening. A streaming black and white prologue plays throughout the film in-between each scene that helps us understand the where, what and how.
  There is nothing I can pick out of this film that would deter any person that claims to be a movie buff. Watching this movie is a rare treat; you are able to see a never-done-before way of putting the layers together of an already well written script. You will see the story fold itself back up and force you to put together the people’s intentions, the forgotten places and the foreshadowed events as they are taken out of the movie. I would suspect that this movie isn’t for everyone; some will lose interest quickly because of being forced to analyze the complicated format. But for those of us who are looking for a new and innovative way to view film, Memento satisfies that itch to be mentally challenged and does all but surpass perfection.

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• Magmabulle said...

  Posted on Jun 08 2008 21:43 Almost too intelligent, but completely unforgettable.

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• Technoguy said...

  Posted on Apr 06 2008 17:35 MEMENTO
  This is film as cross-word puzzle. Pierce delivers a strong central performance as Shelby,but the real star is in the cutting technique,the film editing,the direction and the story.The central character has a ‘condition’.Also a condition of watching this film is that the story is told backwards,in small scenes of about 15 minutes a piece.This develops in the viewer a schizophrenic state. Kierkegaard said we live life forward
  but only understand it retrospectively. In the plot Shelby has short term memory loss from a traumatic attack where his wife had been raped and killed.He searches for the killer. The film moves from back to front.It
  starts with Shelby killing who he believes is the culprit John G. Then it moves back in time to the wife’s murder. He develops a ‘system’: notes
  of paper,tattoos on his body,polaroids of people and places to build up a
  ‘fact’ file with written text added later. Shelby’s condition is a lack of
  short term memory.He retains long term memories so he can drive a car,
  he knows his wife will not come back,he also knows certain things for sure e.g. the feeling of an object he picks up.There is also the use by Nolan of flash back up to the moment of the wife’s murder and beyond, when Shelby’s wife was still alive.With his adherence to ‘facts’ which he pins down through his system of notes,polaroids and tattoos he avoids the
  unreliability of memory and does not go on recommendations, he utilizes
  instinct to manoeuvre himself through the impasse of non reflection. He has to make on the spot judgements from observations on the hoof. He says just because he doesn’t remember doesn’t mean his actions are
  meaningless.
  He knows who he was but not who he is now. He was an insurance investigator working on claims. This part of the film is cleverly done in
  black and white.He recalls ‘Sammy’ one of his client claimants who had a similar memory problem and uses his story to understand his own. Sammy could only remember things for 2 minutes and has such a short attention span following his own accident.He could still do complex things like his wife’s insulin shots because learned before the accident.He
  is given tests and with the idea of repetition is given conditioning to see if he could learn through instinct not memory.Sammy does not respond which suggests his condition is psychological not physical. This does not mean Sammy was faking it but it does mean his claim was turned down as he wasn’t covered for mental illness. His wife at her wit’s end having to pay for medical bills tests him fatally for herself asking him three times
  consecutively to give her her shot of insulin. She ends up in a coma and dies and Sammy ends up in a nursing home.
  The loud and brash character of Teddy is a private investigator who Shelby asks for help.He knows he is looking for the culprit John G. Teddy seems a little too fond of getting him to change his I.D. as he says a cop is after him. Shelby writes him down as a lier. Later on writing down to kill him. A hotel proprietor exploits his memory loss charging him for 2 different rooms. Also Natalie a bar worker(Carrie Ann Moss) is a femme fatale he meets who he sleeps with and helps with her abusive drug-running partner and she passes on the license plate no. of John G.
  Shelby uses his practise as an investigator to find the truth: learning to look in people’s eyes and study their body language.
  This is an existential thriller whose hero doesn’t know how he got here or what he’s done or who he is.The fact that it is able to ask such questions as ‘Does the world exist outside of our minds?’ is no mean feat.This character has to heal ,bereave,but can’t as he can’t feel ‘time’. I’d like to modify the intellectual pleasure of the conundrum by saying it’s hard to
  feel life moving backwards or to feel anything for the character but still
  admire the director’s attempt to do something different.

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