Review of Memento (2000) by Scubasteve Walter M — 09 Jul 2013

Nolan didn't impress me much with his movies. Insomia, Inception and the rest of Batman Trilogy were disappointments.

Well...that was yesterday. I kept saying to myself, Batman Begins and The Prestige are not enough. I need one more good noir movie from Nolan. Man of Steel didn't count coz he's just a producer and it had a good writer.

But guess what, after watching Memento, man I gotta tell ya, he's right next to Tarantino in my list. I'm now officially a Nolan Fan!

Perhaps Memento could be the Pulp Fiction of the decade. Non-linear storytelling as the breading filled with psychological twists, really do make a supreme film sandwich. Tarantino and Nolan are right on the money with that gig. Putting science into art is really remarkable. I gotta write that down.

There are several things that makes Memento so unique. First it's played backwards with another storyline playing over the backwards scene. It's quite confusing but as Nolan put it, This helps the audiences know the condition of Lenny. Having an emotional effect like that to connect the character to your audience is amazing.

Second, for handicap characters it's always been a tragedy or drama, yet Nolan was smart enough to make it into a noir film. Full of lies and deceit. Everyone's a suspect even Lenny himself. You don't see that everyday.

Third is the plot that he lies to himself in the end, is amusing. But it goes deeper than that. Again it connects again to us, the audiences. We do lie to ourselves to make things better. And along the movie, we ourselves more and more in Lenny's character. He speaks of undeniable truths about lies and memories. Whether tragedy or great happiness, sometimes we just don't appreciate it. The irony of this is Lenny literally don't remember anything because of this condition.

And last but not the least, what makes memento a classic is it leaves audiences with questions about the story that were never answered. Even if you watch it several times, there's some bits of ambiguity to some scenes. Too much subtlety can confuse the audience but in this movie, the amount is just right. And that in effect creates a wanting for the movie. It leaves a dry taste in your mouth.