narrative form in the fantastic movie 'memento'

Rating: 10/10 (2 June 2010)

In 'Memento' Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) suffers from memory loss since the murder on his wife. He cannot make any new memories after this event, where he was also injured. Throughout the movie he tries to find the man who raped and murdered his wife, but because of his memory loss he has to make notes, Polaroids and tattoos of all the information he gains. The syuzhet of the movie is quite incomprehensible, because there are two story lines on the same story. One storyline is chronological and shown in black and white; the other storyline is narrated from the back to the beginning.
Firstly, Christopher Nolan succeeds very well in narrating the story in a convincing manner and he has tried to make the viewer experience everything like Leonard does. The viewer does not know anything more than Leonard: we only see what he does and the information he gets but we do not know the actual truth about the murderer of his wife where Leonard is looking for. Leonard's life is very unsecure: he has to do things and trust people without knowing whether it's the right thing to do. His life depends on the notes he makes, although these might be unreliable. Another way in which Nolan has made the movie very convincing is by using the perspective of Leonard: you can hear his thoughts and he is present throughout the whole movie: Leonard's actions are followed the entire time. By hearing his thoughts you can imagine how confused Leonard is after every time he loses his memory. Nolan did a great job in not being afraid to repeat certain parts. Usually this can become very annoying, while in this particular movie the repetitions make the movie more convincing and easier to understand how Leonard must have felt. Every morning Leonard has to remember himself that he has memory loss and what his goal is: he reads his notes, asks himself questions and looks at his tattoos.
The movie Memento starts with the murder on a man, but you don't know who this man is and what is happening. This immediately gives the confusing effect that Nolan intends to create, because it makes you wonder about how and why this happened. This will become clearer later on in the story, because the fabula is told backwards. In every scene you will get more information about the life of Leonard and on the murder of his wife. This makes the viewer very curious, because you really want to know more. One of the advantages of the movie is that the concept of memory loss and the narrative form (which is telling the story in reverse order) works really well as a combination. Due to the reverse order you are not wondering about what will happen next, but what has happened before, which is exactly how Leonard always thinks. In this way, you can really empathize with him and look at the story through his eyes. This was one of the reasons why we really liked this movie since the plot really involves you in the story and it does not get boring. Also, the movie has an open end so you can think up your own ideas of what actually happened since you cannot be sure who is telling the truth. However, if you want to understand (almost) the entire story you should watch Memento several times since one time will not be enough to do so.
Another thing that has been very well done in this particular movie is the fact that although the concept of a guy with memory loss whose wife is murdered is in fact rather serious and dramatic, there are some humorous parts in the movie as well. Leonard wakes up in awkward situations without knowing what he was doing, for example in the scene where he is being chased but thinks that he is chasing someone himself. In these scenes you hear Leonard's confused thoughts, which makes the movie a little less serious. So Christopher Nolan has tried to make the movie a little bit more lighthearted and not too heavy, which has worked out quite well.
And finally, not only the director did a great job while directing this movie, but he also chose the right cast. The actors definitely showed that they are very talented. Guy Pearce showed some great acting skills while representing the role of Leonard, because he has to act like he forgets everything and does this in a very convincing way. Lots of people recommend this movie and say that it is one of Guy Pearce's best movies, and we definitely agree with that since he really did a great job and it is a fascinating movie.
Memento is a very impressive movie and you will remember it because it is a very original way of telling a story. Furthermore, it reminds you of how precious memories actually are and how hard it is to not know which people you can trust. Memento is not a movie where you can relax while watching and which you will forget after wards. You even want to watch it again, and every time you watch it you will discover more and more In short, what we want to say is that we really recommend this movie and we can assure anyone who is interested in watching it that he/she will like it!