Friday, 27 May 2011

What's the last thing you remember?

Memory loss causes problems. Look at me, I don't even know why I'm sitting here. I think, I think, it has something to do with, um, the thing with the... no, I've forgotten again. I'm glad I don't have anything important to do. Yeah, I'd be rubbish at that. I should just go back to bed, or I might start some elaborate plan that'll only lead to trouble. That might have already happened. I hope I didn't hurt anyone. No, don't be silly. Go back to bed.

Memento seems like the sort of thing a thousand film students have written essays about, discussing all the nuanced bits and bobs of the backwards plot. Take it out of a university seminar and it becomes pretty entertaining. The audience is on the same level as the hero, waking up in each moment not knowing what came before. Look, I almost started writing an essay then. The simple thing to say is that it gets a lot of fun out of its big idea, and that Nolan knows how to keep you right on the edge of being confused.
Posted by at 16:52 Labels:

8 comments:

  1. Titus27 May 2011 at 17:20

    I'm strongly identifying here.

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  2. ArtSparker27 May 2011 at 18:53

    This film for me goes in the already dead protagonist category, even though the protagonist isn't dead - that is, in films like Jacob's Ladder and Siesta and the Sixth Sense, the main character is trying to figure out what is going on, and then they are kind of sorry they did. They all have this kind of Buddhist Bardo feeling.

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  3. Drake Sigar27 May 2011 at 19:13

    Everyone this guy knows is trying to use him! Trinity (I never bothered learning the actress’s name) has such vile and despicable lines, I don’t think I’ve ever hated a fictional character so much. “You know what? I think I'm gonna’ use you. I'm telling you now because I'll enjoy it so much more if I know that you could stop me if you weren't such a fucking freak!”

    Bitch be crazy.

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  4. Chris David Richards27 May 2011 at 19:40

    Yeah, the final scenes were almost the same as finding out he was dead. Everything he thought he was was wrong. I like an unreliable narrator - makes everything wonky.

    And Trinity was despicable. Everything we were made to assume at the start turns out to be wrong, with characters being nastier or nicer the further back it goes. Like the normal twisty crime story, but in reverse. It gets clever the more I think about it.

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  5. Jack L27 May 2011 at 23:53

    Nolan's best in my opinion.
    the Batman films, The Prestige and Inception just didn't work for me at all. He should have stuck at films like this in my opinion...

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  6. Chris David Richards28 May 2011 at 15:19

    That's interesring. I've never heard anything but nice things about Nolan's bigger budget stuff. I'll have to look at your reviews.

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  7. Jack L28 May 2011 at 15:22

    I haven't reviewed any of his films yet.
    But I'm planning to sometime soon...

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  8. Mette29 May 2011 at 15:02

    Another of those need-to-watch-but-still-haven't-don't-know-why films...

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