"Everyone complains of his memory, and no one complains of his judgement."--Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, "Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims", 1678
The above is a very good quotation to keep in mind as one watches "Memento". Believe me, it all makes sense in the final context.
My main attraction to this movie was Guy Pierce (whom I became acquainted with via "L.A. Confidential") and the nature of the story. Having heard a little of short term memory impairment via a "20/20" show long, long ago (as I recall, I believe the particular instances cited were the result of a disease transmitted by eating mussels), I thought that it would be interesting to see how a mystery was being investigated by a man with the same problem. My reaction was the same that I got from watching "The Limey". It was NOTHING like I was expecting.
The opening sequence sets the tone straight away, up the hill backwards, to borrow a phrase from David Bowie. Like a surreal slideshow, we flash backward and forward from the beginning and end points of Lenny's week(?) to figure out basically what the hell is going on (one of Nolan's smartest moves was to film the earliest sequences in black and white and the time just prior to the opening in color to reduce audience confusion). At first, I believed Lenny because he seemed so calm, rational, and assured in spite of his obvious handicap. SURELY he'd know what he's talking about. (bitter chuckle) More the fool me.
The whole of his world is constricted to five minutes at a time. Five minutes where every incident, every insult, every indignity that is heaped on him is flensed from his mind like a stain exposed to bleach unless he considers it important enough to write down. How could one possibly trust such a man who's forgotten why he's running away from a man with a gun (indeed, forgotten that he's being chased and not chasing), that his wife was called a whore by a woman who is supposedly helping him, or that said woman spat into a tankard that he then thoughtlessly drinks from...all of it instantly forgotten at the end of his memory cutoff? Nolan deserves additional credit for not letting Lenny off the hook at the end. Yeah, we can see that he's been used by a few folks, but he's no innocent himself.
In a weird way, it reminds me of "Point Blank", another one-of-its-kind crime film with some very unorthodox storytelling methods. It had the same sort of flat characterizations (not necessarily a fault, to my mind; watch one of the many versions of "Hamlet" if you want characters), the feeling of being unstuck in time, and a protagonist with rigid but flawed moral compass. But there are important differences. "Point Blank" was like living someone's life the same way Kurt Vonnegut wrote "Slaughterhouse Five". "Memento" is like watching a couple of cars start at opposite ends of a long street and end up hitting each other in a head-on collision. The resulting smash-up, as well as that last, casual line, will haunt me for the weeks the way "Sunset Boulevard" did. Watch it and see if it doesn't do the same for you.
The above is a very good quotation to keep in mind as one watches "Memento". Believe me, it all makes sense in the final context.
My main attraction to this movie was Guy Pierce (whom I became acquainted with via "L.A. Confidential") and the nature of the story. Having heard a little of short term memory impairment via a "20/20" show long, long ago (as I recall, I believe the particular instances cited were the result of a disease transmitted by eating mussels), I thought that it would be interesting to see how a mystery was being investigated by a man with the same problem. My reaction was the same that I got from watching "The Limey". It was NOTHING like I was expecting.
The opening sequence sets the tone straight away, up the hill backwards, to borrow a phrase from David Bowie. Like a surreal slideshow, we flash backward and forward from the beginning and end points of Lenny's week(?) to figure out basically what the hell is going on (one of Nolan's smartest moves was to film the earliest sequences in black and white and the time just prior to the opening in color to reduce audience confusion). At first, I believed Lenny because he seemed so calm, rational, and assured in spite of his obvious handicap. SURELY he'd know what he's talking about. (bitter chuckle) More the fool me.
The whole of his world is constricted to five minutes at a time. Five minutes where every incident, every insult, every indignity that is heaped on him is flensed from his mind like a stain exposed to bleach unless he considers it important enough to write down. How could one possibly trust such a man who's forgotten why he's running away from a man with a gun (indeed, forgotten that he's being chased and not chasing), that his wife was called a whore by a woman who is supposedly helping him, or that said woman spat into a tankard that he then thoughtlessly drinks from...all of it instantly forgotten at the end of his memory cutoff? Nolan deserves additional credit for not letting Lenny off the hook at the end. Yeah, we can see that he's been used by a few folks, but he's no innocent himself.
In a weird way, it reminds me of "Point Blank", another one-of-its-kind crime film with some very unorthodox storytelling methods. It had the same sort of flat characterizations (not necessarily a fault, to my mind; watch one of the many versions of "Hamlet" if you want characters), the feeling of being unstuck in time, and a protagonist with rigid but flawed moral compass. But there are important differences. "Point Blank" was like living someone's life the same way Kurt Vonnegut wrote "Slaughterhouse Five". "Memento" is like watching a couple of cars start at opposite ends of a long street and end up hitting each other in a head-on collision. The resulting smash-up, as well as that last, casual line, will haunt me for the weeks the way "Sunset Boulevard" did. Watch it and see if it doesn't do the same for you.