Any of you guys seen
Memento yet? It's a truly mind-blowing film that should get as
much exposure as possible.Leonard Shelby
Created by Jonathan and Christopher
Nolan
Any of you guys seen
Memento yet? It's a truly mind-blowing film that should get as
much exposure as possible.
The main character is (or at least was) a P.I. (well, actually, an insurance investigator). But I think this qualifies him for inclusion on this site, even though the "investigation" he is involved in throughout the film is a personal vendetta.
Guy Pearce plays LEONARD SHELBY, a former insurance investigator in the San Francisco-Bay Area, searching for his wife's killer. Unfortunately, Shelby (who sustained a serious head injury during the fatal attack on his wiie) suffers from a rare form of amnesia which renders him incapable of retaining memories on a short term basis. Any bit of information he learns since his injury must be recorded or will be quickly forgotten.
As a result, he must use an elaborate system of notes, photographs and even tatoos to keep everything straight. As you can imagine, this makes his "investigation" so much more difficult.
Along the way, he meets Teddy and Natalie (played by Joe Pantliano and Carrie Anne-Moss) two mysterious, but seemingly helpful people who may or may not be as freindly and helpful to Shelby as they appear.
The plot itself sounds like a decent low budget mystery. But what makes this movie stand out is the construction of the screenplay.
Not
to give too much away, but writer-director Christopher Nolan tells
the story in reverse chronological order: the ending of the film
is shown at the begining and it proceeds backwards from there.
As a result, the audience is just as confused and uneasy about
what is going on as Shelby is. You only find out the whole story
of how he ended up in the mess he was in during the
last ten minutes. And even then you aren't sure what you just
saw were the objective facts or a fractured approximation cooked
up in Shelby's mind. I've seen this movie twice and my brain still
aches when I try to figure it all out.
Some critics dismissed this film as gimmicky. But it's a hell
of a gimmick. Like Sleuth, Memento is a strange puzzle
of a film that requires real thought to even get a glimmering
of what just happened.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Christopher
Nolan's dazzling, creative screenplay was inspired and based on
a short story, "Memento Mori," by his brother Jonathan.
In the story, Earl (renamed Leonard Shelby in the film), whose
occupation is never specified, apparently suffering from short-term
memory loss, uses notes and tattoos to hunt down his wife's killer.
FILM
SHORT STORIES
RELATED LINKS
Respectfully submitted by Bryan English.
