Memento is a psychological thriller and a neo-noir film directed by Christopher Nolan, that was inspired by a short story of his brother ''Memento Mori'' .
The main character is Leonard Shelby, who suffers from Anterograde amnesia (loss of the ability to create new memories after the event that caused the amnesia, leading to a partial or complete inability to recall the recent past, while long-term memories from before the event remain intact) after he was injured by the people who killed and raped his wife.
After he wakes up and determines his identity, he swears revenge on the killers, but his plan is complicated because of the amnesia. To function, Leonard takes polaroid photographs of all the people he meet and tattoos on the body all the essential information that will help him find the killers because he loses his memory every 15 minutes.
The most interesting aspect of this film is definitely its non-linear editing. The film begins with the last scene, the director builds the plot through the subjective experience of the world of the protagonists that changes every 15 minutes, and finishes film with the first scene.
The story itself follows two different plot lines: one that is presented in color (the main plot line), and another that is presented in monochrome (sub-plot line).
To be precise, the film takes place in 22 scenes (in color), or even more precisely, 22 chain of time that go backwards, and it’s interspersed with scenes in black and white in which time moves straight ahead.
Every few minutes the sequences that go in reverse order are thus cut off with black and white scenes that goes in chronological order, and to be clearer Nolan repeats fragmentary sequence by connecting a few seconds of the scene that precedes it.
At the beginning of each scene of the main fragmentary narrative flow we get the impression that protagonist is ‘’waking up’’, Leonard himself is constantly repeating the phrase '' I'm awake. Where I am?’’
Other narrative flow of the film presents a scene where Leonard talking on the phone, which is stylized as a neo noir. Given that the entire film centers around the state of amnesia of the main character and the creation of so-called narrative flow from the first person, much attention had to be dedicate to cinematography .
The film is dominated by extreme close-ups and details, so the audience would have the feeling that they see what the protagonist sees. The key element here are the photos that Leonard takes with his polaroid camera and tattoos on his body that carry the essential information for the outcome of the film. These details are revealed gradually being used as suspense, as in the scene where Leonard is talking on the phone and reveals a tattoo that says '' Don’t answer the phone ''.
Nolan often used this approach, where the macro details are essential to the unfolding of the story and connects events that had previously acted incoherently.
The first time we are faced with the clash between past and present is in the beginning, just before Leonard kills Teddy. Teddy says to Leonard:
-“You don’t know who you are.”
-“I’m Leonard Shelby, I’m from San Francisco.”
-“That’s who you were, that’s not what you’ve become.”
So here we have that underline point of the film. Nolan takes the film as a ground to test some theories on the philosophical concept of “personal identity” by asking the audience two questions Can we rely on his memory? and
Is the protagonist responsible?
The Scottish philosopher David Hume asserts that identity is an illusion : we are a collection of fleeting impressions. What are we, since we are not ?
I watched this movie so many time in film studies. I had to do a "shot by shot". The first few times I thought it was fantastic. The next few brilliant. I think Inception was a better film from an entertainment standpoint - but Momento will probably remain his best film - for those of us that have it memorized ;)
note to self - watch Momento again.
We too had to watch Memento in film studies, in the film editing class :)
If you really think about how it was structured, pure cinema.
He makes messing around with time look easy.. the movie is incredibly complex if you want it to be - or simple if you dont. One of the few where the surface story is interesting - and the deeper story is even more interesting. One of the best in the history of film IMO.
I liked the film. It was impressive.
twisted ending movie :D
if you like that kind of twists, watch his first movie ''Following''
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0154506/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_11
Christopher Nolan is one of the greatest directors today. This was the first movie I saw of his. Been a fanboy since. Cheers.
Dope flic. Never gets old, even though I know what's going on.