Memento

• Title: Memento
• Director:  Christopher Nolan
• Date:  2000
• Studio:  Newmarket Capital Group, Summit Entertainment, Columbia-Tristar (distributor)
• Genre:  Thriller
• Cast:  Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Callum Keith Rennie
• Format:  Color, Widescreen
• DVD Format:  R1, NTSC

"That must suck. It's all backwards. I mean, like, maybe you've got an idea about what you want to do next, but you can't remember what you just did." - Hotel Clerk

"I'm disciplined and organized. I use habit and routine to make my life possible." - Leonard

Memento is a remarkable movie, because it uses a structure that I don't think any other film has used. The film is told backwards. It's also unusual in that there are two films in one. The main story, in color, has each scene taking place immediately before the scene that precedes it. The backing story, in black and white, does move forward in time and is almost a commentary on the other scenes. It also serves to orient the viewer some in any areas that might be really confusing.

The first time I saw Memento, I knew going in that the film would be told backwards - it is what it's famous for. And even though the film is a little confusing at first, one quickly becomes used to the idea - and it really isn't as confusing as you might think. The structure forces the viewer to pay close attention to what is happening in the film. The structure also really, really puts an emphasis on editing. And as you watch the film, you end up mentally re-ordering the scenes to put them in context.

However, the structure also emphasizes the character and his point of view. The main character, Leonard (Guy Pearce), is suffering from retrograde amnesia. That is, due to a trauma (we're told) he can remember his life before the trauma, but he can't make new memories. Leonard's life exists in the brief span of a scene, the minute he loses focus, or falls asleep, he forgets everything that's happened to him. The highly unusual structure, of telling the story backwards, emphasizes this - if you haven't seen the movie before, you don't know what happened before either. Therefore when Leonard finds himself chasing a guy - or as he quickly realizes - being chased by a guy with a gun, the audience also has no idea why.

Upon viewing the film a second time, the structure still works. Because the film is told in reverse order, it's hard to remember individual scenes - so one is, for example, still confused as to why Leonard's being chased. I was surprised when I watched the film a second time, that the structure still worked and the film isn't a one hit wonder. I knew the big secret from the end of the film, of course, which I'm not going to reveal in this review. Memento still works as a film even on a second viewing.

Memento is also a film that has a timeless look to it. It's a story told in cheap hotels, dive bars, and abandoned buildings. Even the one home we see (Natalie's), although nice, is incredibly nondescript. The anonymous places accentuate Leonard's situation.

However, Memento is, at it's center a disturbing film - not because of it's unique structure, which the viewer quickly gets used to, but because of the Big Secret at the end of the film, The end, which is really the beginning when you think about it. I don't want to spoil that for movie viewers who haven't seen it, but once you know, it changes how you view the film. And probably not in the way you think.

Recommendation:  See it! I would especially recommend this movie to film students.

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Next Film:  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Inception

• Title:  Inception
• Director:  Christopher Nolan
• Date:  2010
• Studio:  Warner Brothers
• Genre:  SF, Action, Thriller
• Cast:  Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine
• Format:  Color, Widescreen
• DVD Format:  R1, NTSC

"What is the most resilient parasite?  A bacteria, a virus, an intestinal worm? ... An idea. Resilient, highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold in the brain - it's almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed, fully understood, that sticks."  -- Cobb

"Do you want to take a leap of faith? Or become an old man - filled with regret, waiting to die alone?" - Saito

"It's the chance to build cathedrals, entire cities, things that never existed, things that couldn't exist in the real world." - Cobb

Inception is a film about dreams, but it is not the typical film about dreams - such as the person who dreams of being a famous musician then becomes one, or the young man who dreams of becoming a professional sports player - then makes his dream come true.  This film is literally about dreams, and as such, the entire film is a commentary on films themselves.  But for all the meta implications, it's not a nod-nod-wink-wink type of film that pokes fun at anything.  Rather it suggests a type of caper film, though the caper doesn't take place in the physical world at all.

Cobb (DiCaprio) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are professional extractors - men who, for a price, will enter a person's dreams to steal information, often as a form of corporate espionage. However, in this case, when their plans don't quite work out, the man they are trying to steal from instead hires the two for Inception - the concept of planting an idea in someone's head, so that they themselves believe that they came up with the idea - themselves.  Like many other caper films, after some debate among themselves, Cobb and Arthur agree to perform the crime - Arthur, because he knows the corporation that hired them in the first place will kill them for being unsuccessful, and Cobb because he's a wanted man - and Saito has promised to make his charges go away so he can return home and to his own children, if he's successful.

Cobb and Arthur to find their crew for this special job:  a chemist - to create a special sedative to put the victim under during the crime, Eames - a spy and con-man - to gather information on the victim, an architect - to build the triple-layered dream world, Arthur, and Cobb.  Their architect is Ariadne, a young student of Miles - Cobb's old teacher, and the grandfather of his children - Phillipa and James.  Arthur and Cobb train Ariadne in shared dreaming.  Cobb finds the chemist and an old friend who becomes their spy and investigator.

The "heist" involves getting Fischer - the victim - on a ten hour flight, slipping him a mickey, then entering his dreams.  The dream will be three layers or levels deep, and at each stage, the crew - specifically Cobb and Arthur (with some assistance from Eames) work different angles into their con to convince Fischer Jr that he should break-up and sell his father's near monopoly energy company so he can become his own man by building something new.  In the end, Cobb and Ariadne end-up going to a fourth level - Limbo, or the subconscious - for two reasons, for Saito - who was shot in the first level of the dream, then died in the third level (normally dying in a dream would wake up the dreamer - but not when under sedation) and so Cobb can confront his dead wife, Mal - who's been haunting him throughout the film.  In fact, as the film goes on - it becomes less about the plot to convince Fischer Jr to break-up his father's company, and more about the question of Mal and Cobb and just what happened between them.

Inception is also circular in nature. The film opens with Cobb washed up on a beach, captured by Asian gunmen, and taken to a wealthy, older Asian man. We will learn this is Saito, who has lived for years in his subconscious world, because time moves differently in the dream world as to the real world. The film, at the end circles back to Cobb on the beach, and Cobb confronting the Asian man. But then the film adds a couple of scenes at the end that leave the film mysterious and open-ended.

The second major point about the film, Inception, and the reason I can watch it over and over again, is it is visually stunning.  Where else would you see roads folding in on themselves? An endless staircase? A freight train moving through a crowded downtown city street? Or the vanishing point of a set being revealed as a mirror, then being moved by a character to form an infinity box?  Yet these impossible scenes, rather than breaking the fourth wall in the traditional sense, are used to clearly show that a particular moment which seemed "real" is actually part of a dream - so they fit into the larger world of the film.  It is truly a visual masterpiece of film.

Recommendation:  Must see!

Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Next Film:  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Memento