Memento
by Cheeto
Posted on 4 December 2021
Rating -
Memento is a 2000 American mystery thriller film, written and directed by Christopher Nolan, and produced by Suzanne and Jennifer Todd. The film’s script was based on a pitch by Nolan’s brother Jonathan, who wrote the 2001 story “Memento Mori” from the concept. Guy Pearce stars as Leonard Shelby, a man who suffers from anterograde amnesia, resulting in short-term memory loss and the inability to form new memories. He is searching for the people who attacked him and killed his wife, using an intricate system of Polaroid photographs and tattoos to track information he cannot remember. Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano co-star.
Memento is a film I watched years ago, I forgot everything about it (let’s just skip over the irony). Even after a second watch, and a much more mature brain; I still have dents in my understanding of this film. This is truly a film in which you think; how the hell did anyone come up with this?!
First off, Guy Pearce is great as our main character, Leonard Shelby. As a full feature focused on one main character, you need a competent lead, and Guy Pearce does this and then some. I also think that Carrie-Ann Moss and Joe Pantoliano put in great performances in supporting roles.
The plot to this film is both brilliant and great. I love how it almost works in reverse, and the film keeps us as much in the know as Leonard does. This is so effective, because it’s like we accompany Leonard in his journey to find out who killed his wife. I think the fact that Leonard can’t make new me worries, and has to live in the moment, it’s tense as he could completely forget important information, or he may not recognise certain people. I like how Nolan’s choice for Leonard to remember things is to tattoo them into his body. 1, it makes sense, and 2, it’s really quite odd but fascinating at the same time. I think it also drives the point that he literally can’t remember anything after his head injury, a head injury he got when his wife was killed.
Nolan throws many things out way, things that may sway your beliefs of what happened the night Leonard lost his wife. Certain characters act suspiciously around him, also some things don’t quite add up, this helps keeps us on the very edge of our seat, like I mentioned before.
Everything after this contains spoilers!
Throughout the film, we learn of a man, who’s suffering from memory loss, he accidentally kills his wife due to giving her too many insulin shots. Obviously he didn’t mean to do it, like I said, he forgot he already dosed her. We see the man and his wife throughout the film in flashback sequences, in different scenarios.
As we get into the final scenes, things really don’t make sense at this point. Leonard begins to believe that Teddy (Pantoliano) was the one who killed his wife, Teddy reveals all. He reveals that the man and his wife have all been in Leonard’s head. He didn’t make the scenarios up, he just changed the people. That man that killed his wife, well it was actually Leonard himself. He was the one that killed his wife, accidentally of course. His memory loss wasn’t from a blow to the head, but by the fact that he severe amnesia. Teddy was Leonard’s old partner, he could see that Leonard was confused about his wife, so he gave him purpose by sending him on this who’s investigation. Leonard still doesn’t believe this, even though all of the evidence is there, and he sadly kills Teddy, still believing he was the one who killed his wife.
The final scene is Leonard leaving the building, now in Teddy’s clothes, getting into Teddy’s car. This is also the first scene of the film, so it all makes sense.
Overall, this film truly showcases the directing ability Christopher Nolan possesses, how he came up with this film; I truly don’t know.
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