 A landmark film from acclaimed director Christopher Nolan (Inception, The Dark Knight, The Prestige, Batman Begins, Insomnia), Memento is a mind-bending thriller whose mesmerizing power grows with every viewing. Guy Pearce stars as Leonard, a man with a bizarre disorder: the inability to form new memories. Ever since that fateful night when his wife was murdered, anyone Leonard has met, or anything he has done, simply vanishes from his mind. Who are his friends? Who are his enemies? What is the truth? The answers change from second to second as Leonard seeks vengeance for his wife's murder...and sinks into an abyss of uncertainty and danger. Storyline: Memento chronicles two separate stories of Leonard, an ex-insurance investigator who can no longer build new memories, as he attempts to find the murderer of his wife, which is the last thing he remembers. One story line moves forward in time while the other tells the story backwards revealing more each time. Written by Scion013 Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman on February 12, 2011 -- Christopher Nolan is one of the current "It" directors in Hollywood, and his latest release Inception is widely cited as one of the most innovative films of the past several years. It may be sacrilege, but as much as I enjoyed Inception (and I did enjoy it immensely), I just don't buy into the idea that it is, in one oft-repeated pull quote, a "game changer." We'd previously seen ideas very similar to Inception in a host of films, not the least of which were the Matrix movies. For a really innovative and game changing Nolan feature, you'd be hard pressed to find anything which tops Memento, the brilliant, mind bending 2000 film which put Nolan on the map and paved the way for a string of challenging and highly entertaining films which include everything from The Prestige to the rebooted Batman franchise. Memento is a deliberately obscure piece, one which forces the viewer into the sort of disequilibrium which its hero, Leonard (Guy Pearce), is experiencing due to his anterograde amnesia. Nolan, adapting his brother Jonathan's short story "Memento Mori," weaves an intensely convoluted structure, with two alternating timelines and one of those timelines playing out in reverse. Memento is in fact so structurally complex that near doctoral theses have been written about it, positing the difference between sujet (the actual architecture of how the film is presented) and fabula (the story in chronological order). It would actually be a little funny, at least for those of us who look at the frequently hyperintellectualism of (ahem) film critics with a jaundiced eye, if it weren't for the fact that Memento actually deserves and in fact probably requires this kind of intense scrutiny in order to fully understand how its medium is very much a part of its message. Memento's inventive title sequences immediately clues the viewer in that a remarkable film journey is about to unfold, or perhaps more accurate, fold, since everything in the credits segments plays out backwards. We start with the after effects of a gunshot, and then travel back in time as the killer's photograph of the event un-develops and magically pops back in the camera, accompanied by the flashbulb erupting. What's going on? Nolan, certainly one of the most erudite and articulate directors out there, has viscerally oriented the viewer to Memento's bracing vocabulary, where we are going to move slowly backwards in time from denouement to setup. And once we understand that this isn't a mere gimmick (though of course it is), that it's actually a very apt representation of Leonard's inability to hold onto any short term memory, it makes the film an experiential voyage like few others in recent, and indeed perhaps more than recent, cinema history. Is there anything more subjective than memory? Where does memory reside and what exactly does it offer us as individuals? Is it the anchor grounding us in our own personal time stream, or is it dead weight that keeps us in a self-dug rut? Memento offers a lead character bracingly free of both the constraints and the identity which memory provides for every human being. Leonard is adrift in an experiential sea where he's never sure what's happening or in fact why he's doing what he's doing. His body is covered with tattoos with which he's inscribed himself in order to help keep on track, and he writes copious notes for himself which he finds in various nooks and crannies. But what exactly is going on? It's part of Memento's immense appeal and almost mythical allure that the viewer, like Leonard, is never sure, even after the puzzle pieces have been put together, retrograde style, by the end of the film. Memento is in fact one of the most purposefully ambiguous movies in recent (ahem) memory, and Nolan delights in never completely wrapping things up with a pretty and/or bloody little bow. All that we really know is that Leonard has killed his tagalong Teddy (Joe Pantoliano), whom Leonard has come to believe was involved in the rape and murder of Leonard's wife (Jorja Fox, in flashbacks). Led on by a perhaps duplicitous bartender named Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss), Leonard is a free agent in every sense of the word, a wisp of vengeful smoke blown hither and yon by competing yarns he's told and perhaps even by his own misperceptions of what has happened and is continuing to happen to him. Against the segments that play out in reverse, Nolan intercuts a relatively straightforward set of chronological vignettes in black and white (which instantly separates them from the main color retrograde elements) where Leonard gleaning information on the phone from his hotel room. The two elements finally merge toward the end of the film, but it's Memento's crowning glory that in a final twist of fate, we're not quite sure things are as Leonard thinks they are, and the film's climax is a gut wrenching moment of uncertainty and questioning. Has Leonard finally avenged the killing of his wife? Or has he simply made himself a pawn in his own convoluted, self-constructed chess game? It's possible to come to either conclusion, or in fact both simultaneously. Rarely has a film exploited audience disequilibrium so effectively. Memento is one of the few films where style and substance commingle brilliantly, much like (forgive me) sujet and fabula. Nolan has proven himself in subsequent films that very rare helmsman who is able to present often baroquely labyrinthine stories with impeccable flair and panache. But Nolan never lets his own virtuosity, which is inarguable, get in the way of the film's story and message, whether that be the memory impairment at the heart of Memento, the dueling magicians in The Prestige, or The Dark Knight's superhero exploits in the two Batman movies thus far released. Nolan never lets his formidable directorial craft overshadow the actual film, which is a rare commodity in the ego-drenched world of filmmaking. Memento may easily be one of the most thought-provoking films of the past several years, but it's also one of the most entertaining. That's a one-two punch that is, to put it simply, unforgettable. Nolan has been crafting "game changers" long before Inception, as Memento rather conclusively proves. This is one of the most challenging films of at least the last decade, bracing in both its architecture and the implications of its purposefully ambiguous plot. Virtually pitch perfect in every way, with a unique and very engaging marriage of style and substance, the film finally has Blu-ray release worthy of its impressive pedigree. Very highly recommended. Trivia:
Cast Notes: Guy Pearce (Leonard Shelby), Carrie-Anne Moss (Natalie), Joe Pantoliano (Teddy Gammell), Mark Boone Junior (Burt), Russ Fega (Waiter), Jorja Fox (Leonard's Wife), Stephen Tobolowsky (Sammy Jankis), Harriet Sansom Harris (Mrs. Jankis), Thomas Lennon (Doctor), Callum Keith Rennie (Dodd), Kimberly Campbell (Blonde), Marianne Muellerleile (Tattooist), Larry Holden (Jimmy). IMDb Rating (04/03/12): 8.6/10 from 384,149 users Top 250: #33 IMDb Rating (10/15/07): 8.6/10 from 161,161 users Top 250: #27 IMDb Rating (11/18/01): 8.9/10 from 17,292 users Top 250: #9
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