Memento Review
by Terry L Jeffress (jeffress AT xmission DOT com)October 26th, 2001
TITLE: Memento (2001)
DIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan
STARRING: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Mark Boone Junior, Russ Fega, Jorja Fox, Stephen Tobolowsky, Harriet Sansom Harris
STUDIO: I Remember Productions, Newmarket Capital Group, Team Todd RATING: 9/10
Leonard wants revenge, he just can't remember who to kill. Leonard Shelby (Guy Bearce) caught two men raping and killing his wife (Jorja Fox). He shot one and the other got away by hitting Leonard on the back of his head. With that head injury, Leonard can no longer create any new long-term memories. He can remember his life up to the accident, and now lives his life in three minute bursts. To survive, Leonard has developed a system of taking Polaroid pictures, leaving notes, and getting tattoos of the really important facts, like "John G. raped and killed your wife."
The genius of _Memento_ lies not in Leonard's condition, but in the telling. To punctuate Leonard having no direct recollection of the past, director Christopher Nolan plays out Leonard's story in reverse. We have no direct recollection of Leonard's past. Nolan starts by showing Leonard killing "Teddy" (Joe Pantoliano), and we spend the rest of the movie in a semi-confused state about how Leonard could piece together enough evidence to know he had to kill Teddy. We draw conclusions, but then in the next scene we learn a new fact -- a fact from Leonard's past -- that completely rearranges our understanding of "the facts." Leonard has a relationship with Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss), but he can't remember her from one meeting to the next. You obviously can't have a very meaningful relationship with a woman if you can't remember her, but Leonard has written on his picture of her, "She has also lost someone close. She will help you out of pity." Leonard explicitly trusts the notes he leaves himself, but we soon begin to suspect that Natalie and perhaps others use Leonard for their own purposes.
So how far can you trust memory? Leonard says at one point that human memory can turn a white car red. In his life before the accident, Leonard investigated insurance claims and often had to present facts contrary to a claimant's memory of events. Yet, Leonard's entire motivation rests on what he remembers from before his accident and the conclusions he can draw in a moment or two from his numerous notes and pictures. His life ends up mimicking our own. We claim that we base our actions on facts, but we should probably not consider facts so hard and fast.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2001 by Terry L Jeffress <[email protected]> Review URL: http://www.xmission.com/~jeffress/reports/m/M200119.html
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
