Amazing concept and execution.

Rating: 10/10 (15 May 2014)

Memento has been out for over a decade, unfortunately I never to got to see this brilliant flick until a few months ago. I had no idea what I had been missing, I had read before about this movie and the concept seemed confusing to me and I had no idea how it would work. But when I actually got around to watching, I was absolutely mesmerized and I was glued to my seat from the beginning to the end. Part of me is glad that I watched this film so late because back in 2000 I was too young to understand what this film was trying to accomplish.
Memento is an extremely unique film. When you watch a film you always are eager to see what happens next, you may have an idea about what may happen next, but you are still interested in seeing it. This film is the opposite, it makes you anticipate or interpret what had happened earlier. This movie moves in a reverse chronological order. It was done to make us see the movie from Leonard (Guy Pearce)'s perspective, as his character is suffering from Short Term Memory loss and has no idea what he is doing in a couple of minutes and has no idea what he did before. In normal films there is a room for interpretation because they are in a chronological order, this film however leaves you in a black hole and the further you get into the movie, the more you will be able to connect the missing movies.
The film has two different sequences one sequence is thew story unfolding in reverse order, the other scenes are the black and white documentary scenes which are slow but give the film a realistic feel and make you understand what is in the mind of Leonard Shelby. And by the end both these sequences intersect.
That is what is so brilliant about Memento, it makes you heavily think, invests you in the movie, makes you solve a puzzle, much like the puzzle the main character Leonard's is trying to solve. And by the end you will be able to join most of the missing pieces together. The movie also ends on a brilliant note as it leaves you thinking and leaves a lot of room for interpretation, about what happened. This will make you want to talk about this movie and thinking about it even after you have watched it.
The replay value is also good, some scenes are so fantastic that you can watch again and again mainly the Teddy scenes which have excellent and funny dialog. The movie can also be watched from different perspectives, you can watch the movie in it's normal chronological order, which is not recommended because it ruins the fun. And you can also watch this movie based on the interpretation that Leonard's is trying to solve an unsolvable puzzle and that he is deluded person trying to escape reality.
The storyline is not that amazing but it is the way it is told, like a puzzle is what makes it so great. The whole storyline remains a mystery till most of the movie unfolds. Acting wise this film is fantastic. Guy Pearce is fantastic in his role as Leonard Shellby, not only he is excellent to watch all the scenes, and he gets all the screen time and makes most of it. Leon's character was also brilliantly return how do you make a character with short term memory loss work, you give him notes photographs and tattoos to remember things so that he is not completely handicapped. Carrie Annie Moss gets little screen time but she does a great job in the amount of screen time she gets , many of her scenes with Pierce are actually fantastic. That leaves Joe Pantoliano who is fantastic in his role as teddy, his dialog delivery and humor is fantastic and he is extremely charismatic every-time he is on the screen he demands your attention. Some of his dialogs are the best in the entire movie.
The soundtrack and the music also perfectly match the neo-noir atmosphere and environment of this film
This is one of the older films of Christopher Nolan, and only shows how great his style is and how brilliant is direction. This movie which one of the earliest films Nolan made gives Nolan's other blockbuster films, the Dark Knight trilogy and Inception a great run for it's money. Do yourself a favor and watch Memento is a fantastic film and that will mesmerize, and once it is over you still be talking about and thinking about it fro a long time, that's how brilliant this film is.
Overall Rating 10/10.