Memento

UK Release Date: 20 October 2000

Certification: 15

Director: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Mark Boone Junior, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Guy Pearce, Stephen Tobolowsky

Rating: 91%

When the world met Christopher Nolan.

Review:

Christopher Nolan is the greatest filmmaker of all time. I don't think it's debatable. I don't think it's even close. He's so much more than a filmmaker. He's a writer, an artist, a mathematician, a scientist. For a director to be able to create something so inventive and totally original in only your second directorial outing, his first with a Hollywood budget, is utterly perplexing. 

Memento is also such a pivotal film because it's the first time Christopher Nolan decided to work with his brother Jonathon Nolan. Working together with Christopher writing the screenplay and Jonathon writing a short story 'Memento Mori'. It's a well-polished script with each piece of dialogue being slick and precise. Memento is so well written in fact that you can be shown the same scene twice but the second time will play completely different to the first. This is because Christopher Nolan ensures that context is everything in Memento, it's the key component to understanding the film's plot. The fact that context is so important to the film allows for the repetition of scenes allowing for a new perspective of characters and the film in itself. 

Guy Pearce's performance is truly astonishing - the best of his career. He plays Leonard - a man who suffers from anterograde amnesia after an accident that occurred after his wife was murdered. The disease results in short-term memory loss and the inability to form new memories. Playing the role of an unreliable in a Neo-noir film you can't trust anything that Leonard says. However, due to the brilliant screenplay, it's difficult not to empathise with Leonard joining him on his journey for revenge. He's a broken character from an outsiders point of view but mentally he's determined and dogged which makes him somewhat admirable. But towards the end of the film's runtime his character switches becoming maniacal, delirious and displaying alarming behaviour. He's a man devoid of any real purpose or identity and that's dangerous. Pearce's performance is without doubt under appreciated and underrated. 

The non-linear story telling sets Memento apart from other mystery thrillers. It was something that hadn't ever been done before and in all honestly it hasn't been replicated to the same standard since, excluding Nolan's other features. In colour, the movie plays in reverse chronological order which is clever but what makes the decision ingenious is that simultaneously, black and white scenes play in chronological order. This allows the story to unravel in a unique and interesting way. The opening shot of the film is in reverse, essentially presenting the film's conclusion from the get go. Nolan denies the audience the same information that he denies Leonard to amplify the feeling of confusion. He won't truly be satisfied until he creates a film that confuses, not only the audience, but himself