"Memento" proved that a competent director, a revolutionary idea, and a decent cast could sometimes be enough to make a groundbreaking film. The film is essentially a neo-noir thriller played backward. Leonard is looking for the man who raped and killed his wife, but the traumatic events caused him short-term amnesia. Unable to store memories for more than a few minutes, he leaves clues for him to find, like scribbles, tattoos, and polaroid pictures. Every time Leonard loses his memories, he has to guess how things happened by looking through the clues he has.
At the beginning of the film, Leonard already found the killer, but cannot remember how. We are then progressively taken back in time and shown the events that lead to each piece of evidence. As the viewer only knows what would happen, but not how it happened, it's easy to feel in Leonard's shoes. Each episode starts where the following scene would end, and despite the fragmented storytelling, everything flows coherently. There is also a parallel timeline (shot in black and white) that proceeds forward in time to converge with the backward timeline in the end.
As the story progresses (or I should say, regresses), our view of Leonard and the other characters drastically changes, until we lose our trust in memory and reality. Facts and evidence are the foundations of truth and the only things that lead Leonard's search, but they cannot be reliable as they are subject to the influence of the individual who processed and recorded them. Leonard is so sure about the absolute value of facts and the impermanence of memories, but in the end, memories are the only things that help us define our reality. Wrong assumptions and fabricated evidence are enough to lead his search on the wrong path.
The success of "Memento" turned Christophe Nolan into one of the most prestigious directors in Hollywood, but at the same time caused his self-pressure to create increasingly revolutionary and conceptually complicated films, mostly with forced and incoherent results.
Review by manicureVIP 4BlockedParent2021-05-01T14:36:59Z
"Memento" proved that a competent director, a revolutionary idea, and a decent cast could sometimes be enough to make a groundbreaking film. The film is essentially a neo-noir thriller played backward. Leonard is looking for the man who raped and killed his wife, but the traumatic events caused him short-term amnesia. Unable to store memories for more than a few minutes, he leaves clues for him to find, like scribbles, tattoos, and polaroid pictures. Every time Leonard loses his memories, he has to guess how things happened by looking through the clues he has.
At the beginning of the film, Leonard already found the killer, but cannot remember how. We are then progressively taken back in time and shown the events that lead to each piece of evidence. As the viewer only knows what would happen, but not how it happened, it's easy to feel in Leonard's shoes. Each episode starts where the following scene would end, and despite the fragmented storytelling, everything flows coherently. There is also a parallel timeline (shot in black and white) that proceeds forward in time to converge with the backward timeline in the end.
As the story progresses (or I should say, regresses), our view of Leonard and the other characters drastically changes, until we lose our trust in memory and reality. Facts and evidence are the foundations of truth and the only things that lead Leonard's search, but they cannot be reliable as they are subject to the influence of the individual who processed and recorded them. Leonard is so sure about the absolute value of facts and the impermanence of memories, but in the end, memories are the only things that help us define our reality. Wrong assumptions and fabricated evidence are enough to lead his search on the wrong path.
The success of "Memento" turned Christophe Nolan into one of the most prestigious directors in Hollywood, but at the same time caused his self-pressure to create increasingly revolutionary and conceptually complicated films, mostly with forced and incoherent results.