DONT FORGET THIS ONE

FILM: Memento
CAST: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano
DIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan
WRITER: Jonathan Nolan



While the whole of India right now is more than geared up for the Christmas release of the Aamir Khan's Ghajini, I would like to introduce you to Memento, the original version of Ghajini. I went through the newspapers today that the film may not release on Christmas due to problems of copyright with reference to its Tamil predecessor. My reaction to it was, what the hell! Both are bloody lifted stuff from Nolan's masterpiece(I mention both Christopher and Jonathan here). What are they fighting over? May be they are fighting over who is a more original duplicate!!

Cristopher Nolan has got a very different narrative style in any of his movies barring the The Dark Knight and Batman Begins which followed linear narration. Otherwise he follows a very non linear pattern of narration. For example he puts a scene from the end in the beginning and jumbles it up by narrating past and present together. This was I think best done in The Prestige.
Here in Memento he follows a pattern not ventured much into; Reverse Chronology. It means that the movie starts from the end of the story and ends at the beginning!

Leonard played by Pearce is the male lead here. His wife was raped and murdered by some John G. And during that incident he hit his head badly and damaged his brain to step into a very strange mental disease. He did not forget everything. He just could not make new memories. A similar case was shown in the Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler starrer 50 First Dates.

Leonard, also called Lenny had vengeance in him. He wanted to find whosoever John G was. He being previously an investigator started investigating himself again with this condition. For this he created a very disciplined and bizzare mechanism. He tattooed vital information about the killer on his body (He does not have an eight pack, thats more realistic). He always had a Polaroid camera with him which would instantly give him the picture of the person he just met. He would write down vital information about the person then and there and refer to it again when he lost his memory again.

Natalie played by Moss, is a bartender who gets involved in this case too, somehow. She has an interesting dialogue to Leonard. Is that what your little note says? It must be hard living your life off a couple of scraps of paper. You mix your laundry list with your grocery list you'll end up eating your underwear for breakfast.

Also a vital character in the movie is played by Pantoliano. I think he has done the finest job in the movie. He plays the killer. He is John G, disguising himself as Teddy, the cop. He tries to deviate Lenny from his investigation. Lenny having realised that long back had scribbled in his notes: Dont Believe his Lies.

Considered as one of the best movies of all time(ranked 27 currently in IMDB's top 250), Memento surely is a great one to watch. But there are some vital flaws in the movie. For example if he remembers only till he was hit on his head, how can he know that he doesnt remember anything and that he has a condition which is not amnesia. Simply speaking, how can he know that he doesnt know anything. On similar lines, how does he remember his photograph mechanism. Everytime he cannot remember, how does he know that he has to look for the photographs? I believe these are big enough flaws as it questions the basis of the whole drama.

Performances cannot be questioned though. Nolan chooses the best in the business. The dialogues are something which are the best aspect of the movie: keeps you intriguing and blends, rather enhances the whole drama beautifully. The best dialogue for me was when Lenny tells Natalie that wounds heal when you have time with you, how could his wounds heal when he doesnt feel time at all!

Many might say that the Reverse Chronology pattern was made to create something interesting in a rather predictable plot. True. But there is more to it I believe. The normal human brain is trained to see things from A to Z. But when you are moving from Z to A, you still would anticipate a Q after P. But if you are shown an O after P, you are confused and you actually forget something which happened around. This master idea of psychology was exploited by Nolan to give the audience an experience of memory loss as well while watching the movie based on short term memory! This fact makes this movie one of the bests in the world.

The last dialogue of the movie is when Lenny comes to a tattoo shop for the first time(remember the movie is going reverse), he says, "I have to believe in a world outside my own mind. I have to believe that my actions still have meaning, even if I can't remember them. I have to believe that when my eyes are closed, the world's still there. Do I believe the world's still there? Is it still out there?... Yeah. We all need mirrors to remind ourselves who we are. I'm no different."