Reviewed by Brett Schummer
May 12/14
Original Score: 3.5/5
May 12/14
Original Score: 3.5/5
Christopher Nolan finds his bearings in this neo-noir short-term memory caper, Memento.
I think this is a really daring film. Nolan definitely challenged himself with this film, with generally good results overall.
Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) is a man, who after the assault of him and his wife, has anterograde amnesia. He is on a self diagnosed mission to claim revenge on a man named John G, who allegedly raped and killed his wife. His tale is told thorough two intercut timelines: one which is shot in colour and tells his tale in a reverse order of events, and one which is shot in black and white and is told in chronological order. The events of the film unfold to the audience in a non-chonological order, as they try to unravel Leonard Shelby's mysteries alongside him.
This is
Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) is a man, who after the assault of him and his wife, has anterograde amnesia. He is on a self diagnosed mission to claim revenge on a man named John G, who allegedly raped and killed his wife. His tale is told thorough two intercut timelines: one which is shot in colour and tells his tale in a reverse order of events, and one which is shot in black and white and is told in chronological order. The events of the film unfold to the audience in a non-chonological order, as they try to unravel Leonard Shelby's mysteries alongside him.
This is
Even from a brief summary of this film, you can tell it's extremely complicated. After viewing a film like this, you may need to take a while to process it.
That being said, what we have here is a classic plot twist formula. A lot of the film is just eagerly awaiting the last moments that will allegedly "blow your mind." Now I don't have a problem with this kind of storytelling technique, it's just important to keep in mind the amount of pressure put on this reveal. And on my first watch through, I was mildly disappointed. I don't know why specifically, I just felt as though not enough of it was surprising. For me, it wasn't overly gratifying, but definitely well done.
In that sense, and actually many others, this film seems very similar to Fight Club.
Other things that I found detrimental to this film were it's over-usage of a few techniques. In particular, I found the frequented lapses in time exhausting. You have to sit through scene after scene elaborating on brief details and overlapping the last scene you watched. The transitions between the colour and black and white scenes also felt peculiar in editing. It appeared as though the sound editing never really fit perfectly with the quick fades and it took me out of the narrative a bit. The overall sound used that appears on the title screen was also a little too repetitive. I can understand why Nolan might have made the film physically exhausting at points, to help connect with the character and his condition, but I thought he overextended the use to an undesirable amount.
At points I was almost more interested in what film lie beyond the stylistic title screen for the DVD, instead of the film itself.
That being said, what we have here is a classic plot twist formula. A lot of the film is just eagerly awaiting the last moments that will allegedly "blow your mind." Now I don't have a problem with this kind of storytelling technique, it's just important to keep in mind the amount of pressure put on this reveal. And on my first watch through, I was mildly disappointed. I don't know why specifically, I just felt as though not enough of it was surprising. For me, it wasn't overly gratifying, but definitely well done.
In that sense, and actually many others, this film seems very similar to Fight Club.
Other things that I found detrimental to this film were it's over-usage of a few techniques. In particular, I found the frequented lapses in time exhausting. You have to sit through scene after scene elaborating on brief details and overlapping the last scene you watched. The transitions between the colour and black and white scenes also felt peculiar in editing. It appeared as though the sound editing never really fit perfectly with the quick fades and it took me out of the narrative a bit. The overall sound used that appears on the title screen was also a little too repetitive. I can understand why Nolan might have made the film physically exhausting at points, to help connect with the character and his condition, but I thought he overextended the use to an undesirable amount.
At points I was almost more interested in what film lie beyond the stylistic title screen for the DVD, instead of the film itself.
That aside, there was a lot in this film, a lot I really enjoyed. I personally like films that shake the preconceptions of narrative structure, and I thought this film help up to its reputation in that field. How Nolan used the narrative structure to construct Leonard's existential journey was pretty brilliant. He displayed a character that at first seems considerably cool and composed, and eventually makes the audience realize how people take advantage of him, and the kind of pathetic character he is.
These sort of ambiguities that appear throughout the film due to Lenny's disability poses great questions about the nature of the narrator and reality and perception. Similar to the unreliability of the narrator in shown in Kurosawa's Rashomon, Nolan makes a compelling case of how we trick ourselves into seeing what we want to see.
In the end, Nolan provides a satisfying story on memory that serves as great social commentary of how society treats the disabled. With good, but not spectacular, editing and cinematography, and usual understandable pitfalls, Memento is a very good film worth enjoying.
These sort of ambiguities that appear throughout the film due to Lenny's disability poses great questions about the nature of the narrator and reality and perception. Similar to the unreliability of the narrator in shown in Kurosawa's Rashomon, Nolan makes a compelling case of how we trick ourselves into seeing what we want to see.
In the end, Nolan provides a satisfying story on memory that serves as great social commentary of how society treats the disabled. With good, but not spectacular, editing and cinematography, and usual understandable pitfalls, Memento is a very good film worth enjoying.