Memento (2000)

Turkish title:
“Teleprompter”

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Written by: Christopher & Jonathan Nolan

Starring: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Ann Moss, Joe Pantoliano

Running Time: 1 hour, 53 minutes

Rating: R

Pre-Conceived Notions: Memento is one of those movies that has been around forever, and that I keep hearing a lot about. I’m actually really excited about watching it because it deals with chronological order, and messes time up and makes you think really hard about stuff. Those are the kinds of movies that I watch. I just posted that I was going to see this movie on Facebook, and one of my friends called it a “cinematographic lobotomy.” Whatever that’s supposed to mean. I guess I’m going to find out really soon.

Why I Haven't Seen This Film: At the time those really upbeat Mentos commercials were on the TV all the time, and Memento and ‘Mentos’ sound too much alike, so I didn’t go see it. Yeah. That’s exactly what happened. If you don’t believe me, I will submit to a polygraph. Don’t think I won’t do it, ’cause I will. 

1 hour, 53 minutes later…: Wow! That was like watching a Harold Pinter play. For those of you not in the know, Harold Pinter wrote a play where the scenes are backwards, so the surprise ending is actually the surprise beginning. Pretty cool, huh? Seinfeld did this as an hommage to Pinter in the episode where Elaine goes to India to get married? I think that was the plot? Anyway. I love it when people turn convention on its head like that. 

I have a confession to make. I’m a reader. I read Wikipedia articles and blogs about movies and stuff in order to quench my thirst for knowledge. I read in an article that the black and white scenes are in chronological order, and the color scenes are in reverse chronological order. That one simple thing really helped me follow the plot of the movie. In fact, it was such a no-brainer, I’m surprised people don’t pick up on that the first time they watch it. This whole technique is ingenious, because how do you write a movie from the point of view of a person with no short-term memory? You tell it backwards, of course! 

The only gripe I have about the plausibility of the plot is that when you have a short-term memory disorder, you kinda don’t remember you have a short-term memory disorder. There are real-life cases where people have memories as short as 7 seconds. It’s like they are trapped inside their heads, because they don’t have any recollection of the past, and they can’t look to the future, because they are locked in the present. Take a look at this video, and you’ll see what I mean.

Final Thoughts: 5.5 slices out of 6. The story telling was top-notch, and I’m kind of exhausted from trying to keep the plot in my head from all the scenes that happened before, but really happened after. Your brain is not designed for backwards things. I absolutely loved this movie. So why did I take a half a slice away? Well, YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SHAKE A POLAROID PICTURE! I don’t care what that song says. The good folks at Polaroid point out that shaking a picture in order to develop it faster destroys the picture quality. Someone really should have told Leonard that.