MEMENTO review: holy short-term memory loss, Batman

Christopher Nolan is best known for his Bat-films, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight; big, heavy, dark comic book movies that have captured the hearts and wallets of a generation of moviegoers. But once upon a time, before Christian Bale gargled gravel and donned the bat cowl, Christopher Nolan made a little film called Memento. It’s a mind-bending post-noir psychological thrillery affair, as well as a pretty remarkable study of our dependance on (and modern storytelling’s clinging faithfulness to) linearity, and Nolan seems set to return to this kind of mind-meddling progressiveness in his next film, Inception. So how is Memento? Will this Inception thing be good like Memento or bad like The Prestige, Nolan’s other between-Batmans project? Well thankfully Memento is awesome, and here’s why.

The film concerns Guy Pearce’s Leonard as he struggles to piece together elusive evidence and find out once and for all who killed his wife. Typical noir, so far, but the catch is this: Leonard can’t remember a single thing after his wife’s death. He can generally only remember a few minutes into the past, and the film takes this idea and runs with it, essentially putting us in Leonard’s position. Two-minute scenes play, and then the following scene will be completely unconnected in the usual sense of the word. Instead of playing the story through scene by scene, the narrative is mangled and fractured beyond easy recognition. There are two threads to the narrative: one is told backwards (the last scene plays first, the penultimate scene plays second, etc.), while the other is told forwards. To confuse the heck out of the audience the plot cuts back and forth between these two narratives, so there’s a pendulum-like back-and-forth nature to the film, swinging as it does between now (in colour) and then (in black and white). This is the film’s biggest innovation and it’s main selling point (“the movie’s backwards, man!”).

If you didn’t follow that or it didn’t make sense, don’t worry; you have to see it to get it, and part of the genius of Memento is that Christopher Nolan effortlessly allows you to ”get it.” Leonard is surrounded by mementos, photos and notes and occasionally tattoos that he uses to remind himself of important things, like where he’s staying, what he’s driving, who he’s been hanging out with, and, vitally, clues to the identity of the man he’s trying to hunt down despite the bewildering state of his condition.

The film’s first act is strangely satisfying in its setting-up of Leonard’s world. We are introduced to things the way he sees them, with accompanying notes and photographs, and before too long, the audience has gotten used to the back-to-front nature of the scenes. We start cataloguing the way scenes start and then waiting for the next scene and look ahead to where it will fit in with the previous one. This remarkably simple and obvious change of technique totally dunks the viewer in delicious confusion for a while, and you wonder why more people don’t experiment with traditional straightforward structuring like this — make the viewer assemble the chronology in their own brains, and they’ll feel a lot more rewarded when the pay-off arrives. Plus the fact that scenes have a distinct beginning and end helps make the film seem finite and manageable, despite its convoluted technique, so it’s not a chore to watch.

The second act takes what the viewer learned in the first act and scrunches it up into a horribly complex little ball and dares the viewer to try and unravel it. The movie thunders along like a speeding train, so merely following it is an exercise in cerebral gymnastics; you may find yourself reaching for the pause button and making mental notes to visit Wikipedia straight after the DVD finishes to find out what the hell is going on. Stick with it yourself, though, and you’ll be thoroughly rewarded by the climactic final act.

All the threads of the story come together in the end, and a few more threads are thrown in for good measure. I sort of guessed what the “twist” might be, but I wasn’t prepared for the number of plot elements and characters who are radically distorted by the sublime finale. I’m trying not to spoil it for the neophytes, but the final reversal of plot is delicious. It throws out any guesses or assumptions you made for the past two hours about every single character and event in the film. Even though the film’s plot is progressing steadily into the past, it doesn’t feel set in stone. It feels alive and dynamic and challenges us to view time from the other perspective, and we really sympathise with Leonard’s condition by the end of the movie.

What is most remarkable (well, it’s all pretty remarkable, really) about Memento is the philosophical and moral debate that gets brought up every now and then, hinted at in flashbacks and voiceovers and whatnot: Leonard’s assertion that the world still exists even when he closes his eyes temps all sorts of Shroedinger-esque arguments and realist counter-arguments, and asks viewers to question the validity and accuracy of their own memories. Memory is, after all, an imperfect record, an imprint of sensations and emotions rather than useful details, so who’s to say what the universe really looks like beyond our limited perception of it, or whether the mental pictures of things we build in our consciousness are in any way accurate or honest? No human being with experiences and memories, that’s for sure.

The only stumbling block in the way of Memento‘s resounding success is a vague emotional coldness, the likes of which also infuses the aforementioned Batfilms and The Prestige with a kind of austere distance, like nobody on the screen really feels emotions, they’re just throwing on some shallow window-dressing. Something about the characters doesn’t quite hit home — they’re idiosyncratic and give the impression that they feel genuine emotions, but in the end they are just a means to an end. The mind-boggling narrative is the real star of Memento, but I don’t know if I would’ve preferred the film to focus more on the emotions at the risk of sacrificing the admittedly awesome narrative, so who am I to judge?

Memento is an amazing, important film; it’s ten years old but it still feels fresher and more engaging than the bulk of modern releases. It’ll challenge your logic, your philosophy and your sense of chronlogy in a unique and compelling way. The question on everyone’s mind now is this: will Inception follow in Memento‘s footsteps and pave the way for cerebral, soul-searching narratives, or go more the way of The Prestige‘s reliance on filmic hoodwinkery to achieve its goal of pulling the rug violently out from under your feet? We can all hope for the former, but only winter’s (summer up north) Inception release will answer our bothersome questions. Oh, and if you haven’t seen Memento, rectify that gross oversight immediately. You can thank me later.

Memento score

91/100