Memento
Memento, the sophomore effort from Christopher Nolan, has a great hook. It’s a revenge thriller about a man who sets out to find the man who killed his wife and, in turn, kill him. What’s so great about that, you ask? The hook is that the man is hindered in his efforts by the fact that he has no short-term memory. Now you’re interested, you say. Which is a good thing because it seems there was so little faith that something like this could work that no studio, big or small, would even distribute the film. Indie upstart Newmarket seems not only to have gotten a bargain, but the last laugh as well. You haven’t seen anything like this attempted on screen this year. Period.
The plot summary is the most pedestrian aspect of Memento. It is the story of Leonard Shelby (Guy Pierce), an insurance investigator who has no ability to regenerate short term memory after a blow to the head incurred while trying to save his wife from intruders. Since her death, he spends every waking moment trying to avenge her. The only thing that slows him down is the whole memory thing. He can remember events that happened before the attack clearly, but he has trouble forming new memories. This story has been told many times before notably in films like Death Wish, and if it had been told in a straightforward manner, it would never be as engaging as it is here. While the memory issue certainly puts an interesting spin on things, it certainly not the only thing different here. The most compelling part of Memento is that it is told backwards, starting from the moment when Shelby finds and kills his victim and working its way back down the path that took him there. It is a move of sheer genius that the closer we get to the beginning of Shelby’s story, the more complex and convoluted it becomes. Instead of a mystery that starts out simple and gets harder until it explains itself in the end, the film starts with a simple conclusion and gets harder and harder to figure out as it heads towards the beginning. It’s a move that is bold and original as it is mind-boggling and frustrating.
So, you ask, how can someone track a killer if he cannot remember a conversation he had thirty seconds ago? Shelby’s character explains that the key to living with his "handicap" is organization of information. He takes Polaroids of everything and everyone and keeps them in his pockets, scrawling notes on the back as he goes along. “You need to learn to trust your own handwriting,” he says at one point in explaining his methods. He also tattoos information on his body. His has a file on the police investigation into his wife’s death several inches thick. He has a map of people and places with slots for pictures, notes and directions. He even has help: two characters who could know more than they let on. One of them is Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss) whom Shelby trusts since she too has lost a loved one. The other is Teddy (Joe Pantoliano), an informant who Shelby kills in the first seconds of the film. (This is the first and probably last time I can give that piece of information away with out ruining ANYTHING!)
One of the great aspects of the film is how it plays with the way people remember things. It sets up an interesting debate on the reliablity of our stored, remembered information. In his description of his methods, Shelby seems to believe that his system of photographs and notes is just as good as memory since he says people’s minds have a tendency to color the way they remember things. And he is constantly reminded that even when he finally kills the man he’s been hunting, he’ll never remember the event anyway. Can we trust bits of paper and Polaroids more than our own minds? That question isn’t really answered by the film, but it hangs silently in every frame.
Other than 1999s excellent The Limey, directed by Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh, I can’t think of a recent film that would have the guts to try this type of non-linear story telling. But while, Memento and The Limey share some plot similarities (The Limey’s plot revolves around a father who is out to avenge his daughter’s death), Nolan does so much more with it. I would be doing you a disservice by telling you exactly how he does it all since part of the beauty of the film comes from how little information you know going in, but it seems every detail of the film is bathed in ambiguity.
The excellent script, credited to Nolan, is based on a short story written by his brother. It must have been a no-brainer for the acting talent to sign on. Pierce, who is probably best known for his roles in LA Confidential and Rules of Engagement, has the hardest role to tackle. Even though he, as an actor, knows how the story ends, he never betrays his character’s veneer of constant confusion. The film only works if you believe he has no idea what’s going on around him, which Pierce has no problem conveying. He is simply amazing. Moss and Pantoliano, who were previously featured together in The Matrix, certainly have an eye out for edgy material. Here they are both used to good effect with equal parts humor and humanity. They are the perfect complements to Pierce.
It took me a while to finally see Memento, but it was worth the wait and a second look. The most confusing part about the film for me came even before I’d seen it. I was walking through the theatre where I work and had passed an auditorium where The Mummy Returns had just ended. A couple, who were about 25, exited the showing, but not before the girl turned to her date and said, “Well, at least that was better than Memento!” Since I would have to say that Memento is the best movie I’ve seen so far this year, that would have to make The Mummy Returns something akin to a production of Shakespeare as produced by a noted British Theatrical company with a wry American in a head-turning, image-smashing star turn and conceived and directed by a multiple Academy Award winning writer/director.
Could that possibly happen?
What was I just saying?