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Watching Memento (2000)
Jun. 4th, 2023 09:39 amA few weeks ago I finally got around to watching the movie Memento from 2000. I wish I'd watched it year earlier because it's a good movie. The writing is stellar. Though maybe it's good I left it until now because I've been so unsatisfied with the many poorly written movies and miniseries I've watched in the past few years, it was awesome to have something so thoroughly engrossing.
Memento tells the story of Leonard, played by Guy Pearce, a surprisingly ripped ex-insurance investigator who simply cannot keep his shirt on. Half of the scenes start out with him topless, or removing his top, much to the delight of many of the women and some of the men in the audience. ...Okay, seriously, the movie has a real plot and him opening his shirt is germane to it (keep reading)
but the sex appeal of a shirtless Guy Pearce was one of the things that got this unusually non-linear. brain-teaser puzzle of a movie made in Hollywood.
The essence of the story is that Leonard is avenging his wife's rape and murder. Leonard killed one of the attackers at the scene, but the other got away after injuring Leonard. The injury left him with a very unusual condition: anterograde amnesia. He can't remember new things. Kind of like an Alzheimer's patient, he remembers the past before the injury, but things that happen now disappear once they leave his working short-term memory. Still driven to find his wife's other assailant, whom the police couldn't gather enough evidence to prosecute, Leonard uses tattoos, photographs, and brief written notes to remind himself of the important things he knows he'll forget.
What makes Memento so intriguing is the unusual way the story is told. The movie begins with the final scene of the story. The story is then told in two tracks, alternating scenes between them. One track is the first half (chronologically) of the story, and it's told in consecutive order. The other track is the second half of the story. It's told in reverse order. Each scene provides more context for the conclusion by answering the question, "Okay, what happened just before that?" This reverse chronological device makes this movie rare— rare enough that Hollywood knew they needed to help sell it with a shirtless Guy Pearce— and intriguing to watch because it's so well written.
Memento tells the story of Leonard, played by Guy Pearce, a surprisingly ripped ex-insurance investigator who simply cannot keep his shirt on. Half of the scenes start out with him topless, or removing his top, much to the delight of many of the women and some of the men in the audience. ...Okay, seriously, the movie has a real plot and him opening his shirt is germane to it (keep reading)but the sex appeal of a shirtless Guy Pearce was one of the things that got this unusually non-linear. brain-teaser puzzle of a movie made in Hollywood.
The essence of the story is that Leonard is avenging his wife's rape and murder. Leonard killed one of the attackers at the scene, but the other got away after injuring Leonard. The injury left him with a very unusual condition: anterograde amnesia. He can't remember new things. Kind of like an Alzheimer's patient, he remembers the past before the injury, but things that happen now disappear once they leave his working short-term memory. Still driven to find his wife's other assailant, whom the police couldn't gather enough evidence to prosecute, Leonard uses tattoos, photographs, and brief written notes to remind himself of the important things he knows he'll forget.
What makes Memento so intriguing is the unusual way the story is told. The movie begins with the final scene of the story. The story is then told in two tracks, alternating scenes between them. One track is the first half (chronologically) of the story, and it's told in consecutive order. The other track is the second half of the story. It's told in reverse order. Each scene provides more context for the conclusion by answering the question, "Okay, what happened just before that?" This reverse chronological device makes this movie rare— rare enough that Hollywood knew they needed to help sell it with a shirtless Guy Pearce— and intriguing to watch because it's so well written.
