Memento
Since his “incident”, Leonard (Guy Pearce) is unable to form new memories. Everything fades in a matter of minutes. To cope with this problem, he’s taken to the habit of taking snapshots of everything and writing notes on them as a sort of “photographic memory”. For very important things, he tattoos himself with the information. That important information is what he hopes will lead him to his the killer of his wife (played in flashbacks by Jorja Fox). The photos are craftily used in a way that is very convincing.
This is the movie that’s shown in reverse. It opens with Leonard shooting Teddie (Joe Pantoliano) point blank in the head. The next scene is what happened immediately prior to that, and so on. It’s remarkably effective, especially when involving the whole episode with Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss) and how she cleverly uses his affliction to manipulate the situation. In fact, most everyone uses him and in the end– or is it the beginning?– nothing is as it appears.
I wonder if this would be a good film if shown in a “proper” order. My guess is that it probably wouldn’t. The whole thing is based on not knowing how you ended up in a place, and finding that out is what the ride is all about. It also has the effect of putting you in Leonard’s shoes. Since you haven’t seen what’s happened before, you have no more idea how he came to be where he is that Leonard does. As a side bonus, Pearce spends a good deal of the film in various stages of undress.
; would watch again
May 16th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
The DVD I have has an option to play it in order - it’s still good. It might not be as effective for a first-time viewing, though.
May 16th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
I heard it had that option, but I didn’t notice it and wasn’t told about it until after I’d already sent it back.