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Memento

Even though Christopher Nolan’s (Screenwriter/Director) ‘Memento’ is a couple of years old now (2001), it continues to intrigue on DVD. Known as the movie that goes backwards chronologically in time, ‘Memento’ is not for the impatient or the easily frustrated. However, if you are a Rubik’s Cube afficcionado, this may be the perfect flick for you.

Stylistically, the film has the ‘look’ of film noir. The protagonist Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) tracks down and kills the man who raped and murdered his wife. That storyline alone sets a dark and moody tone. Then there is the structure of the movie. A series of scenes in color show the action going backwards in time, interspersed with a second series of scenes in black and white going forward chronologically. To complicate matters even further, flashbacks provide us with the back story during the black and white sequences. The jerky, frenetic pace mirrors Leonard’s confusion, anxiety and paranoia. Bizarre as it sounds, the story comes together neatly in the end as Nolan repeats important segments to enhance comprehension.

During the assault on Leonard's wife, the perpetrator hits Leonard on the head resulting in a brain injury that leaves him with anterograde amnesia. That means he can’t create new memories. He explains his ‘condition’ each time he happens upon someone he doesn’t remember, which is of course everyone. He knows who he is and he can remember everything up to the incident, but now he has an attention span of about fifteen minutes -- sometimes less if he’s distracted -- and everything distracts him.

Leonard’s disability is at the core of the plot. As he says early in the movie, "Memory's unreliable. Memory's not perfect. It's not even that good. Ask the police -- eyewitness testimony is unreliable. Memory can change the shape of a room or the color of a car. It's an interpretation, not a record. Memories can be changed or distorted -- and they're irrelevant if you have the facts." Even as Pearce delivers the lines, we recognize that Leonard is protesting too much. Memory, we realize, is a critical part of human intelligence.

Memory balances a person. It allows us to navigate through time, to establish continuing relationships and to understand what’s going on around us. In one funny scene, Leonard is running when he loses track of what’s going on. What am I doing here? He wonders. Then he sees someone running a few yards away. Oh, I’m chasing that guy, he reasons. Then that person starts shooting at him. Oh no, he’s chasing me, he realizes and changes course.

Leonard’s condition makes him vulnerable to the unscrupulous. The hotel clerk rents him two rooms, knowing that Leonard won’t remember paying twice. Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) and Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss) manipulate Leonard into doing things for them -- and once he’s done it, he forgets what he’s done. This makes him the perfect assassin and the perfect patsy all rolled up into one.

Leonard’s memory lapses keep him in a constant state of grief over his wife’s death. How does one heal when there is no sense of the passage of time? Even when he gets revenge by killing the man who killed her, his satisfaction is short lived because he soon forgets what he’s just done.

Finally, Nolan presents the story from the point of view of a person with brain damage. Aside from Leonard’s skewed understanding of what’s going on around him due to his amnesia, there are the usual ambiguities associated with first person narratives. Does Leonard tell the truth? Does he deliberately lie? Does he even KNOW the truth? Maybe he’s lying to himself. Maybe he’s crazy. The structure of the movie allows Christopher Nolan to explore all of these nuances.

‘Memento’ requires at least one additional viewing to appreciate the complexities of style, structure, plot and character, Nolan has woven into the experience. A beautifully executed website, www.otnemem.com,which allows the viewer to study many of the artifacts used by Leonard to track down his wife’s killer. However, for those of us who enjoy a good puzzle, this is a DVD worth buying. After the third viewing, you begin to understand how he did it. Beyond that, watch for Nolan’s little visual and structural jokes which will delight trivia buffs everywhere.

Written by: Joyce Faulkner

Reviewers Rating: 9.5
Reader's Rating: 9.10
Reader's Votes: 10

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