Feel-good movie

Rating: 9/10 (12 November 2001)

`Memento' is what I call a feel-good movie in a positive sense because it offers you more little I-see-experiences during two hours than any other thriller or crime movie before was able to. By seeing half of the plot beginning with the chronologically last scene, every scene makes the viewer ask questions of more or less important character: `How did Leonard come there?' `Why is he doing this and that?', and in one of the following (=previous) scenes we get the answers, when we have actually just forgotten the question. Really, Christopher Nolan not only plays with the short-time memory of his main character, but also with ours!
Of course, `Memento' is not a `great movie'; it's not revolutionary because it's hard to imitate it well (which is not at all a bad thing). But it's a completely unique movie like `Being John Malkovich' or `The Truman Show'. Strangely, this kind of movies has always been underrated, not by the audience but by critics and the Academy. `Memento' is absolutely constructed; the base idea itself is what rules the whole movie. And  particularly with Guy Pearce, that blonded, mimeless main actor  it remains cold. No warmth. That's why it is not a `great movie' for me, but it is a feel-good movie and shows absolute technical perfection. 9 out of 10.