MEMENTO review

From time to time it is the utter privilege to sit down in the theatrical venue and watch brilliance unfurl upon the screen and into your mind for all time.

Now here’s the thing. I’ve been hearing about this film for what seems like a year now. Folks declaring it the best film they’ve seen in 5 years. People saying it wipes the floor with THE USUAL SUSPECTS and SEVEN. I’ve been hearing hyperbole for months now.

And folks, believe it or not… I’m a bit like you in that respect. I hear something is brilliant and great and better than everything, and my brain begins to turn off. I figure that it’ll probably disappoint or that whoever it is screaming the brilliance of said film at me probably hasn’t seen enough vintage features.

I mean, in the genre of MEMENTO, where folks seem to like to decree it as being THE GREATEST SUSPENSE/MYSTERY TWIST FILM OF ALL TIME… well, have those people seen the Garfield and Lana Turner POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE? What about the Dick Powell in MURDER MY SWEET trying to put his pants on or THE BIG SLEEP or THE MALTESE FALCON? What about DETOUR or Edmund O’Brien’s panicked frenzy in D.O.A.? What about the desperation in Barbara Stanwyck’s voice in SORRY WRONG NUMBER or CRISS CROSS or the sick fascination and love for LAURA or THE GLASS KEY or THE BLUE DANUBE or DOUBLE INDEMNITY or BRUTE FORCE? What about those last twenty minutes of SPLIT SECOND and STRANGERS ON A TRAIN’s entire your murder and mine? There is a deep and rich pre-1960 landscape of brilliant suspense/mystery/twist films that quite honestly… Kick the bejeesus out of THE USUAL SUSPECT and SEVEN.

Well… I’ve seen all those films… I’ve seen PICK UP ON SOUTH STREET, KISS OF DEATH and KISS ME DEADLY and they do indeed rule the planet Earth with a mighty club. I know this genre inside and out and I’ve seen the various bastard incarnations and the beautiful experiments gone righter than right.

I love the genre with its Femme Fatales and double-crosses and doomed flawed heroes and villains. The Anti-hero with all his despicable traits and tragic cracks of a damaged psyche appeals to me. I love this genre.

And I took that baggage… those films and their stories with me when I walked into that SXSW screening room to watch MEMENTO.

MEMENTO is not the end all of the genre. It isn’t the greatest film of all time… but you know what. It deserves… easily to be mentioned in the same breath with all the titles listed above.

At the drop of a hat, at a blink of an eye if someone said, "Hey Harry, I’m seeing Memento tonight, wanna come?" I’d go. Like all good Film Noir… all good mystery suspense twist films… I eat them like chocolate bars and judging at my girth… well you get the picture.

What is MEMENTO? Well it is a non-linear tale about a handicapped avenging would-be detective seeking revenge for his ‘dead wife’. Looking for the J.G. that did it.

The film is told through a series of vignettes of memory told from last to first and back again. This isn’t a story about beginnings and ends, this is a story in the midst of a story that really has no ends and beginnings.

The film is also about the fragile nature of memory. For example it has been a week since I’ve seen the film. The day before my Kitten and I had a discussion about the realities of long distance relationships and how neither of us had any intention of moving from the places we lived. This discussion was had the day before I saw the film for the last time and now… a week later my thoughts about the film… memories of a loved one and a film are entwined.

There is a scene where Leonard Shelby is asked to describe his wife from memory… as he does, the memories are blinks… glimpses… moments that stuck in the brain because of the light, the momentary thought attached… Because that is how memory works.

The film is painfully and tragically romantic in the worse way. Leonard has had that which he loves taken away… we all know that feeling to one degree or another. New York stole my latest, but while that may be the case I know that I have the potential for another… in Leonard’s case… well, fate isn’t so kind. Not only is his heart broken, but his ability to heal it is as well. His ability to begin again… gone… and when you think about that… you have a formula for a tragic hero / villain.

The film shows the ultimate inability to move on. And while this concept… this idea is a trick… a work of fiction… a leap to be taken… the idea is so pervasive and intriguing that I find myself playing with the concept for hours on end… thinking about how you would begin to live as Leonard Shelby did. Imagining trying to put something together with the inability to keep the jigsaw pieces as you find them. I mean Attention Deficit Syndrome to the extreme.

As I watched the film all I could think is how delightfully clever the story was… how intricate and fun it was to see it unravel. I couldn’t help, but delight and watch as a filmmaker had a perfect concept, execution and delivery on a perfectly clever idea for a movie.

The film has the bare minimum in terms of characters… just enough to play with comfortably. It isn’t crowded… Lots of the film is told in Narration of Internal Thought by Leonard. And it works dead on for the audience in the best sort of Raymond Chandler updated to today manner.

After seeing the film you and the ones you see it with can trade theories and perceptions of events. You can ponder moments in the shower while the other scrubs your back. You can pick up the phone and talk to everyone you know begging them to go out and see this thing and you’ll do it by saying something along the lines of, "YOU HAVE TO SEE IT! DON’T READ ANYTHING, JUST GO"

It is one of those movies. The type that you want to keep as a dirty secret. The sort of film you take friends to after you’ve seen it so you can see their faces as they figure it out or think they have.

Immediately upon leaving the theater I ran into the Boston Film Critic that was filming the Documentary about Film Critics and he took one look at my face and didn’t ask how the movie was… He didn’t wonder if I liked it… He looked at the dazed blissful stare upon my face and said, "I love movies that put that look on my face!"

Exactly, this is that type of movie. The type that puts that GREAT SEX look on your face. Where you come out sated and wanting seconds.

Doubt all you want… be cynical and go with that "PROVE IT" attitude furled upon your brow… but I’m telling you, that smile you see on the faces of those other film patrons as the movie ends… that’s the smile I have right now… cuz it is the smile of knowledge… the smile that knows that it had just seen a superior film.

MEMENTO is everything people say it is… a remarkable brilliant film… in a genre that has had many remarkable brilliant films. Collect and watch them all…