Memento

[ivyfic]

I finally saw Memento (thanks trinityvixen!). I actually didn't find it that confusing. The events taking place in the film are fairly simple; there are only a few characters. This is really the only way to do a film with this complicated a structure—anything more twisty and we'd be completely lost. Also—you all let me down for not telling me Callum Keith Rennie was in this film. Playing a psycho. Again.

I think the one conceit of the film is that Leonard is aware of his condition and aware of his methods of dealing with it, when the very nature of his mental damage should make that impossible. It's a concession I'm willing to make, or there'd be no story. It raises a lot of questions about identity and self when one has no memory but doesn't examine them too hard, which is fine. What I liked is that in the beginning of the film it's clear Leonard thinks he is managing this condition well and capable of almost normal function, when the fact is that his perspective is so limited he is completely out of control. That's what the film is about, really: perspective. It works for us, the audience, because we are slowly allowed to pull away from Leonard's perspective and see the bigger picture, which he never does. It's also interesting to think about the information he loses when he condenses his experiences into a bullet point (she will help you, don't believe his lies). It eliminates his ability to reevaluate or doubt himself. Every conclusion he draws is gospel as soon as he writes it down, which is such an unnatural way to live. We are constantly reevaluating our assessments. (I'm babbling, I know.)

Most of what I watch is genre TV and most of what I read is fanfic. That means I'm used to ignoring plot holes, overlooking utter lack of dramatic tension, seeing past poorly executed structure to the characters and emotion underneath. Watching "Memento" was like getting a shot of pure plot. It was so nice to see something so brilliantly constructed. It's so rare that anything I read is that well put together. I wouldn't want to watch something like this all the time—I live for the character stuff—but it was a nice change.

Comments

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Memento is, save perhaps for the conceit that allows Leonard to remember his condition, a perfect film. It's noirish and mysterious without being campy, well paced, acted, edited, and written, and is just a treat to revisit time and again to catch on more/quicker things that Nolan and co. do with the story. And the remembering you have no memory thing almost even gets a pass because Leonard does say that repetition could teach people with his condition. It's how he knows to read his tattoos and not constantly be surprised by them (some of them do surprise him, but mostly the new ones--when he looks in a mirror, he knows the tattoos will be there).

The structure of the film works because it's not just a conceit. It forces you into Leonard's perspective (as you say, it is all about perspective) but is so much more satisfying than the way he enjoys the story because you also have longer term memory that can track the story (although the overlaps at each scene were really essential to doing that because even the audience starts to forget what came before).

I like the idea that we can evaluate and he can't--I know I knew that, intrinsically, but never thought about it like that. Leonard is a child, one who can walk and talk and kill without understanding the consequences of his actions or feel resolution because of them. He is forever temporary about his life. Because he's stuck in this immediate sense of oh-my-god-someone-is-hurting-someone-i-love and because his condition leaves him vulnerable to predation, you have so much pity for him. But he's a dangerous creature. There is character and story to him because he's not an easily resolved problem or an inherently likeable guy. He was shown to be something of a prick before his accident, and he's paranoid and lethal afterwards. No one in the film is terrific, which I like a lot, too. Everyone tries to pull one over on Leonard (and does). I think Joey Pantaliano's Teddy is closest to being a good guy. In the scene where he confesses to Leonard what they've been doing, there's a real sense of regret and sadness that he's been unable to help Leonard (even as he admits to profitting by it). I believe that once this was an arrangement that did more good than harm. But Teddy's disillusionment killed it (and he's not wrong for hoping there's a fix; even Natalie, who hated Leonard, wanted to believe she could fix him).

And sorry about the CKR oversite. I forgotted.