Film Review of memento for my English class

Rating: 8/10 (17 January 2007)

Memento
...It's a great movie, and everybody should have seen it at least once! And maybe twice to fully understand....
Stijn Bossink
Well, that is my opinion about the movie Memento, directed by Christopher Nolan in 2000. Like the movie, I also started this review at the end. Right now you might think i'm never going to get myself out of this, but be patient...
Get this; somebody breaks in to your home in the middle of the night, he rapes and kills your wife in the bathroom while you are sleeping (let's just say you are her husband...) While trying to save her, you got a hit to the head and you drop to the ground were you lose conscience.
This is what happens to a guy named Leonard. From the moment of the accident he has no short term memory anymore. All his knowledge before the accident are crystal clear to him, but he just cant make new memories. Assuming his wife got killed by the bugler, you (as a viewer) start to put some pieces together. During the film you'll see a story told in a unexpected time frame, namely backwards! All the scenes are like little pieces of a puzzle, all presented to you in a random order. To keep up with the story, scenes of Leonard are put in between. These scenes are filmed in black and white to make them recognizable. The story gets more complicated with every scene that follows. While on the other hand, you notice to understand more of the events taking place. This is the kind of movie were your own memory gets tested. Therefore you really get the emotion of the main character, who's trying really hard to remember all of these pieces to his great puzzle of life. Leonard does this by gathering facts, and tattooing these on his own body, so he will never lose his most important notes that will bring him to his wife's murderer.
The movie has an interesting way of telling a story. As a viewer you accidentally assume all kinds of facts; about the killer, the hero of the story and his enemies. These fact are proved to be wrong or right as the story continues. Nolan knows how to think out of the box, and he proves this by blending a few complicated story lines into one big puzzle. The movie is filmed in a chronological order, probably to make it easy on the crew.
If you are in for a mind wrecking movie night, go to the video rental and get Memento!
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