An emperor with no clothes?

Rating: Null/10 (5 September 2001)

Christopher Nolan and company must be having a good laugh over the effort we poor fools have been expending in trying to understand "Memento." I watched this on DVD once from the beginning to the end and then back again, and I have come to the conclusion that trying to put together a coherent linear narrative with a beginning, middle and end from the jumbled fragments we are given to work with here would be an exercise in futility. The truth is that by the time each revelation has finished contradicting the one that comes after it (or before it?), you are ultimately left with nothing but thin air. Some have said that "Memento" tells its story in reverse order from the end to the beginning, but this is one thing that it does not do. If that were the case, then the final scene at the tattoo parlor would be the beginning of the story, which, of course, it is not. In fact, trying to pinpoint just when the story begins is impossible. I think the filmakers have made us all the victims of a fiendish prank, but I for one do not think "Memento" is nearly as clever as it thinks it is. Oh, and Guy Pearce's rapid-fire monotone almost put me to sleep!