Very original

Rating: 9/10 (16 June 2001)

This afternoon I read an article on the Internet about how to market movies in an original way. Probably the best example of such smart marketing was the whole story around "The Blair Witch Project". This article mentioned another example, the web site for the movie "Memento". The name of the web site is backwards, because this perfectly matches with the storyline: it starts with the end and ends in the past. I was intrigued by the article, so I visited the site. I found a mysterious introduction to the film, giving different hints about it, dosed in such a way that I got so curious I had to see the movie as soon as possible, today. Before that, I checked IMDB and noticed that Memento even made it to number 12 in the all time top 250. And I never even heard about it!
The opening scene gets you immediately. Only after at least a minute I noticed it was played backwards completely. It shows a polaroid picture developing. That is, you see a (dead) man on a developed polaroid picture that's fading more and more. Right after that, you see the picture being taken and a bullet leaving the killed body flying back into a gun. The rest of the story is in fact a number of scenes of the history that led to this last scene, but cut into pieces and put backwards. Why was the movie made this way? Because the main character has lost the ability to remember things that just happened (his short term memory). Watching the film, the viewer sort of suffers the same, because you never know why things happen the way they do. From the beginning of the film, you want to know about the past. The future is irrelevant. You want to know who is who, how the main character gathers all his facts helping him to find and kill the man who murdered his wife and caused him to lose his memory. But also maybe: did he really kill the man he was looking for? Or is someone trying to mislead him? Nobody can be trusted, because you don't know anything for sure.
It is an interesting concept for a movie. But to be honest, after 45 minutes I was thinking how much longer is this going to take? Step by step you are taken along on the path of finding out what had happened and this could have been done somewhat faster. But right at the moment you think you're going to just simply peel of all the layers of the onion until you're at the inside, the movie takes a surprising turn. The main character records everything he hears and sees by writing it down. He can only trust on these notes as facts, because his memory can't help him. In one of the most critical scenes, he just hasn't got the time to write down what has just happened to him and astonishing as it is for the viewer, this means that he manages to forget something that is crucial for the things that will happen in the future.
Watching this film is indeed very confusing for the viewer. The complexity of the order in which everything happens makes you forget about the future and not yet know about the past. While watching you realise that the end of the movie will explain it all. It will, but you still are confused. This is the typical film you just have to see again to understand all the details. And yes, I don't know why, but I really felt as if I myself had lost my short term memory during the first minutes after the movie, walking out of the theater. I do not remember ever having experienced such a subtle sort of brainwash after seeing a film. Exciting, somewhat scary, but impressive once you're completely "sober" again.
Of course there are some logical flaws in the movie, concerning the short term memory of the main character. Sometimes he seems to be able to remember things I guess he should not have been able to remember. But just like "Back to the future" also has its minor flaws, in general the story is really good and can keep you thinking about it for days. It could have been just a little bit more perfect. My last hesitation is therefore if I should find this a super top film that deserves the title "classic". I fear that in the end the movie lacks just this tiny bit of perfection, which makes it just a very original film but not more than that. At least, I think I'll remember it as such in a couple of years.