Nolan's True Masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (28 August 2017)

Christopher Nolan is arguably the greatest film director of the 21st century. We all have probably seen his classics such as Inception, The Prestige, or the newly released Dunkirk, but I feel like Memento was his one true masterpiece that everyone started to forget about, probably because it was one of his oldest films.
Now Memento is probably Nolan's most frustrating film to watch, but for good reason. This film contains two different sequences that alternate throughout the film. There are black-and-white sequences that go normally, and color sequences shown in reverse order. In order to get the whole story, you have to study the movie to get whats going on in one scene, then the next color scene comes right before that. The two sequences then meet at the end of the movie.
This unusual presentation gives it a unique feel as if you were in a dream that makes no sense (and I can relate to that, because my dreams are the same), rather than just showing you another dream that another person is inside (like in Inception which didn't even do the best job with dreams).
And what adds on to this already original film is a little twist in the story involving Leonard (portrayed by Guy Pearce) who has to find his wife's murderer, but can't produce new thoughts in his mind, which explains why he has so many tattoos on his body. It is this highly original story combined with the presentation which proves this film to be among the most highly original.
One major difference you'll probably notice in the earlier works of Nolan is the music, which David Julyan had composed most of his early films which also includes The Prestige, which his Atmospheric scores sounded nearly perfect for Memento. I will say I preferred the music in the earlier films than the newer ones, but every films scores will fit well in their own ways.
Basically, Memento is what I would consider to be among Nolan's greatest, and an excellent attempt at creating an original story combined with unusual film structure. The only downside I would give is that it can be confusing the first time you watch it, but once you get the story and structure, you'll start to realize it's unique excellence that makes this Nolan's true masterpiece.