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 This movie is the best movie I've seen in my life!!! With its original and weird direction this movie starts from the end and moves to the begining while at the same time it starts from the begining and moves forward to the end. With an amazing plot of a detective suffering a rare condition of a short term memory loss caused when he walked in on two men raping and murdering his wife. He then dedicates his life to avenge her death without the possibility of remembering what he had done 5 minutes ago.
Take a movie like Dogma. When the first DVD came out, it had no special features at all. We knew that a better one was coming. The same goes for Spy Kids. We know that there will be a special edition eventually with special features, an added scene and, hopefully, a director's commentary. But with this, we got a DVD earlier that had a few things on it. It wasn't loaded, but you couldn't call it a brown bag edition. And now they're releasing this. I hate them. ps. the movie deserves five stars
During the same attack that resulted in his wife's death, Leonard, played by Guy Pearce, suffered a blow to the head that eliminated his ability to construct short term memories. He searches for his quarry guided by notes to himself that he's had tattooed on his body - sort of like the wife's birthday or wedding anniversary dates the Forgetful Husband might write on the back of his hand to avoid Big Trouble - and the helpful hints he inscribes on the back of the Polaroid photos of people he encounters during his pursuit. OK, that's cool. But still not in the sit-up-and-take-notice category. What really makes this movie fiendishly clever is that the storyline is presented in reverse. It's like the film, created in a normal beginning to end sequence, was chopped into 5-minute segments, then the pieces spliced back together with the beginning of the last sequence now the opening, followed by the second-to-last sequence, and so on. One doesn't dare leave the performance long enough to get popcorn or go to the bathroom, or the vital connections between sequences will be missed. There are also wonderful performances by Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano as damsel-in-distress Natalie and good buddy Teddy respectively. According to the back of Leonard's Polaroid snap of each, Natalie will help him out of pity because she's lost someone too, and not to trust anything Teddy says. But who are they really, and what are their real motivations? The reverse exhibition is the director's tool to keep the audience mentally off balance, much as Leonard is constantly mentally off balance, though in a different way. Though I wouldn't recommend this display format for a plot of greater complexity, MEMENTO is one of those movies, rare in an era of brainless thrillers, where the audience will leave talking to itself, especially after the plot twist at the end. Or is it the beginning? Well, whatever. Good show! |
I'm not normally one who complains about a movie being released twice on DVD. But this is ridiculous. Here's the problem:
In MEMENTO, Leonard is out to find, and kill, the man who murdered his wife in a home invasion assault. Seems simple enough, right? Almost too run-of-the-mill to pay hard-earned money to see. Think again.
