Flutterby™! : Memento 2001-12-26 18:18:01+00

Memento

2001-12-26 18:18:01+00 by Dan Lyke 2 comments

Finally saw Memento last night. Damn, but that's a mean-spirited film. Compellingly shot, the gimmick of telling half the story backwards worked very well, and I love the way that the certainty and meaning of the written notes changes over the course of the film, but the real conflict among the more interesting characters remains deliberately vague in a way that makes the payoff not as compelling as I'd hoped. Anyway, now that I've seen it I can go back and read the Salon dissection of Memento. While it was an amazing break in the standard forms of film-making, I don't think that the payoff, about the meanings of memory and delusion, makes the film worthwhile as more than an interesting study in the structure of story.

Memento made my head hurt. I am so used to linear thinking, or very very clear time/perspective shifts that the whole thing forced me to actively think about what was going on (I typically just sit and enjoy the ride). I enjoyed it, and the reality he creates for himself at the end.

I'll eventually buy the DVD just so I can watch it again, and I'd like to see more films that break the mold.

Well, I now not only have the Memento DVD and I picked up Following as well. Following was Chris Nolan's first film. One of the interesting features of the Following DVD is that it has the option to play the film in linear progression instead of the flashforward/flashback of the actual film. I would have been really interesting if they had that feature on Memento, but they don't.