Memento (2000)

Memento can be seen as the film that first launched director Christopher Nolan into the mainstream spotlightback in 2000 and for very good reason. As much as I do like this film, the first time I saw it my friend pointed out what can be construed as a major plot hole: If the last thing the main character remembers is the brutal killing of his wife, then how can he remember that he has short-term memory loss?"

Guy Pearce plays Leonard, a man that has seen the horrible death of his wife and is hell bent on avenging it. The twist, however, is that he suffers from short-term memory loss upon the death of his wife and has to create a multitude of personal notes to serve as reminders of his everyday life (even memos that have been tattooed onto his body). The strange thing is that Guy Pearce's portrayal of Leonard is a interestingly moving one, which is curious and unexpected considering that it doesn't exactly have any emotional arc over the course of the film's events. This is primarily due to the disjointed nature of the plot.While Leonard seems to suffer from forgetting what has happened, the audience suffers from the complete opposite: the film begins at the end of the story and we as an audience are forced to watch it backwards until the beginning.

Ok, it's not really told backwards for it's entirety. The opening shot of the film is brilliant: a Polaroid that fades away slowly instead of slowly developing, except that every scene in the film plays out with time running forwards. Along the way there are flashbacks that serve to illuminate (or in some cases confuse) the matter at hand. In other words, Leonard is left adrift in time and so are we.

The idea of telling a narrative backwards is an old one, a famous example of it being the 1983 film Betrayal directed by Harold Pinter (also based upon the play that he wrote). It told a story of betrayed friendship and adultery, starting with the heartbreaking and miserable ending and slowly making its way through the disillusioned and disenchantment to complications to speculation to innocence. Pinter's subject was regrets and memories, and the way that adulteries most often start playfully and innocently and then result in utter misery. It was ironic and somewhat creepy how the characters of the film/play became happier as each scene moved to the next, especially when the audience was in possession of the knowledge of what was to come. The sadness in this way was deepened and amplified.

But, in contrast, Nolan's use of telling a story backwards is just that, it's just a device: it is in no way a reflection the workings of Leonard's thoughts. The film's aimless portrayal of time is simply for the amusement of the audience and does not have a thing to do with his condition. I've seen this movie several times, and on subsequent viewings I have found that prior knowledge of the plot attributed a better understanding of what was going on, but it did not change my viewing experience of it. It's ok to only see this movie once because confusion is obviously the feeling we are supposed to be in.

With all these complaints aside, Memento is still a very absorbing experience, in which Pearce plays a sort of lower class  fugitive who somberly creates maps, makes notes and continually explains over and over how he has to speak fast because in the subsequent minutes that follow he will forget the conversation. There's a scene where the clerk at a motel chooses to take advantage of Leonard's condition and makes him pay for two rooms, then cheerfully admits to his dishonesty and points out that he will not remember that he did this. At another point in the film Leonard is told "Even if you get revenge, you're not going to remember it,"  which he justifies with a reply that holds a certain and strange amount of logic: "My wife deserves revenge whether or not I remember it." A very striking and impactful facet of the story are the flashbacks that Leonard has from when he was working for an insurance agency. These flashbacks are about a man named Sammy, who appears to have memory loss, even though he seems just like himself. His wife seems to believe that he is faking, and this story has relevance to Leonard's own problem.

Leonard isn't the the only character in the film, the other major characters being  Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) and Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss). Natalie has her own Polaroid in Leonard's collection which has written on it "She has also lost someone. She will help you out of pity." Their relationship keeps starting over from the beginning of the movie. Teddy on the other hand, his role and his identity continually shift in mysterious ways until the very end of the film.

The goal of this movie is not for the audience to solve the murder of Leonard's wife ("I can't remember to forget you," he says in reference to her). If we leave the theater unsure of what just happened, that's fine. The film is more like a test, where Leonard's somewhat distorted code of honour propells him foward through a cloud of confusion toward what he strongly feels is his moral duty. Perhaps Nolan's choice of telling the story backwards was just a way for us to be able to identify with the hero.