Intriguing

Rating: 9/10 (19 February 2002)

Memento is one of those films you cannot just see once. It's narrative structure and oblique, but well thought out plot are so labyrinthine and so compelling that you have to go back. If only to figure out if you figured it out right the first time you saw it.
The plot concerns a man who has suffered a brain injury that results in him not being able to form new memories. Consequently he goes through life in cycles of wondering where he is and how he got there. He can't remember new people. The last memory he has is of his wife being raped and murdered. This and the fact he doesn't have anything else to lose have spurred him on to find his wife's killer and seek bloody revenge. He overcomes his handicap with the use of copious notes and polaroid photos to substitute for his missing memory. For the really important stuff, only tattoos will do.
This is complex enough. Added to that however is that the director has edited the action so the narrative proceed backwards, from Larry killing his wife's killer back through the events leading up to this moment. You may need to take a notepad into the cinema yourself just to keep up.
This film fits into the category of "wow, that was good, what exactly happened again?" into which you can fit the Usual Suspects and most of the work of David Lynch. It's one of those films that require thinking about. You are a detective sifting through your memories of the film to find solid facts to grip hold of in order to make sense of it. The truth is very slippery though...
Guy Pearce as Larry is excellent. How he prepared for this role I do not know. His motivation at any given instant is confused to say the least. What does a person do when he finds a note written to himself from one of his past cycles of forgetfulness urging him to do something homicidal? That he portrays this character very believeably is an achievement in itself. He draws you into the character and makes him sympathetic despite being confused and driven to revenge. You want to work out what this man is thinking. Pearce lets you into Lenny's mind with an acting performance that should have merited and Oscar nomination at least.
I'm not convinced that this film is as good as it could have been, but it's pretty damn close. It ended when I wasn't expecting it to, and thus left to ponder what resolution there had been instead of providing an easy resolution on the screen. That isn't a bad thing at all, but it did leave me with a big sense that something was missing.
Please go and see this film, if only for the sheer novelty of the plot and the attempt to break the narrative conventions of cinema in such an interesting way.