Memento (2000)Director: Christopher Nolan
Kate is away this weekend at the Blue Mountains Music Festival so I have the place to myself. With nothing to do on a Sunday I decide to sit down for a movie marathon and watched three back to back, the first of which was Christopher Nolan's Memento. Only his second feature film, it was Memento which made people sit up and notice Nolan, establishing a reputation for psychological storytelling that would be cemented with his two Batman films.
Leonard was an insurance investigator whose life was changed when his wife was raped and murdered. Trying to come to his wife's aid Leonard was beaten and as a result now has a condition which prevents him from creating new memories. He doesn't have amnesia, he simply has no short term memory. Leonard sets out for revenge on the man who killed his wife, using a disciplined system of photographs and notes to overcome his inability to remember.
Christopher Nolan has established himself as one of the best storytellers working in Hollywood today. His speciality is the character based psychological thriller. Think about it, the success of Batman Begins came down to the fact that he was able to get into the head of the Batman character and provide a psychological justification for his actions, and then with The Dark Knight he adds to that an incredibly fearsome, complex, psychopathic nemesis. In Memento we have a similar situation where a psychologically complex protagonist, Leonard, is the driving force of the story. But what takes Memento to the next level is that Nolan allows Leonard's condition to dictate the structure of the film.
The unique narrative structure used by screenwriters Jonathan and Christopher Nolan, is a real treat. The first thing we see see is the climax of the film, Leonard killing the man he has worked out raped and murdered his wife. From there we work backwards through the story of his investigation. By running the narrative backwards, in a series of short scenes, each of which ends where the previous one started, we are put into the mind of Leonard. Like him, we have no idea how we got to the scene that we are currently watching, we only find out through the explanation of each note.
I'll admit, when the film started with the resolution to the story, I was left wondering wondering how this was going to work as a film. How was dramatic tension going to be built when we already know what happens? But while we see the chronological climax of the film to start, it is not the dramatic resolution. Rather, the story plays on the idea of the unreliable narrator. Initially our interest is in how Leonard came to his conclusion, but it becomes about whether or not he has got it right. Leonard's condition means that he can forget clues and incidents which we, as an audience, see and go off on tangents that we are aware are false. The film does not have a twist ending as such, you don't spend the entire film thinking one thing and then get flipped at the end, rather Memento contains a series of revelations which constantly challenge where we think the story is heading.
Guy Pearce does a very convincing job of making quite a complicated character believable, and that is hard for me to say because I have an inexplicable bias against Guy Pearce. I think it dates back to his part in Dating the Enemy. It was the first thing I'd ever seen him in, I was quite young and just decided that I didn't like him and it's kind of stuck with me since. But with this role he has gone a long way to redeeming himself in my eyes.
Memento is a fantastic film. It is one of the most clever and different thrillers you will see. It's a must see.
Christopher Nolan has established himself as one of the best storytellers working in Hollywood today. His speciality is the character based psychological thriller. Think about it, the success of Batman Begins came down to the fact that he was able to get into the head of the Batman character and provide a psychological justification for his actions, and then with The Dark Knight he adds to that an incredibly fearsome, complex, psychopathic nemesis. In Memento we have a similar situation where a psychologically complex protagonist, Leonard, is the driving force of the story. But what takes Memento to the next level is that Nolan allows Leonard's condition to dictate the structure of the film.
The unique narrative structure used by screenwriters Jonathan and Christopher Nolan, is a real treat. The first thing we see see is the climax of the film, Leonard killing the man he has worked out raped and murdered his wife. From there we work backwards through the story of his investigation. By running the narrative backwards, in a series of short scenes, each of which ends where the previous one started, we are put into the mind of Leonard. Like him, we have no idea how we got to the scene that we are currently watching, we only find out through the explanation of each note.
I'll admit, when the film started with the resolution to the story, I was left wondering wondering how this was going to work as a film. How was dramatic tension going to be built when we already know what happens? But while we see the chronological climax of the film to start, it is not the dramatic resolution. Rather, the story plays on the idea of the unreliable narrator. Initially our interest is in how Leonard came to his conclusion, but it becomes about whether or not he has got it right. Leonard's condition means that he can forget clues and incidents which we, as an audience, see and go off on tangents that we are aware are false. The film does not have a twist ending as such, you don't spend the entire film thinking one thing and then get flipped at the end, rather Memento contains a series of revelations which constantly challenge where we think the story is heading.
Guy Pearce does a very convincing job of making quite a complicated character believable, and that is hard for me to say because I have an inexplicable bias against Guy Pearce. I think it dates back to his part in Dating the Enemy. It was the first thing I'd ever seen him in, I was quite young and just decided that I didn't like him and it's kind of stuck with me since. But with this role he has gone a long way to redeeming himself in my eyes.
Memento is a fantastic film. It is one of the most clever and different thrillers you will see. It's a must see.
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