Two scores, two genres, one unforgettable film

Rating: Null/10 (6 April 2001)

After watching Memento last night, something hung over me that I still can't shake: that synthesized, sad, meditative score. The music represented the film's wonderful mix of genres for me, from two other California pictures. In Michael Mann's "Heat,"(1995) a cop(Al Pacino) chases a crook (Robert DeNiro) in Los Angeles, with a similar meditative score in the air whenever an important decision is to be made (the tunnel scene near the end for DeNiro.) Here, the cop is told by his lover, "You hunt down your prey...That's all you do." He responds by saying, "It keeps me sharp...on the edge...I am who I'm after." (Lenny, anyone?)
However, even beyond that, we have Todd Haynes' "Safe"(also 1995 and California), where a suburban housewife (Julianne Moore) suffers a mental/physical breakdown that forces her to flee her surroundings and find the cure. No one can figure out though whether her condition is medical or psychological. In that film, an even more solitary, sad, synthesized score hung over her as she tried to figure out her illness.

Now here we have Christopher Nolan's "Memento," also set in California, with a main character is convinced he must hunt down his wife's killer, yet simultaneously suffering a total mental breakdown, the cause of which remains uncertain. Filling so many of his more tender or pivotal moments is this sad, yearning synthesized music, the music of decisions and decay.

The film is incredible, and it should be in major theaters, not just urban art theaters. I'll admit many people won't get it, but there's enough to enjoy and think about here that the plot doesn't have to totally make sense the first time to be a great ride. (Besides, plot complexity didn't stop people from putting out Mission:Impossibe.) Moss and Pantoliano do a great job of being dubious friends/foes of Leonard Shelby, and I found Stephen Tobolowsky very poignant as Sammy.

However, of course, the star of this movie is Guy Pearce. If his performance were not so absolutely convincing, the movie would seem very contrived. As it is, you are so drawn into his world and circumstances that plot twists stop being irritating. Besides, how many times are we really going to find a movie that heads backward from the end, and still provides a suspenseful mystery and a moving drama?
I hardly ever write on the IMDB anymore. I've lost a lot of faith since the multiplexes decided to only put out the most violent, lewd, overwhelming, and sensational pictures in major theatres, avoiding more complex, intriguing works. (Why are Samuel L. Jackson, Guy Pearce, Ed Harris, Carrie-Anne Moss, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Pierce Brosnan all getting shuffled away to the 'art house?') I needed to make a trip back for this picture, though. Give it a look or two: "Memento" is a winner.