Has anyone seen this film? I watched it on TV last night and it was friggin fantastic. By all rights the movie should be almost impossible to follow, youve got a fairly complex story with alot of twists, told backwards through the eyes of someone with a memory problem. But I was really suprised how coherent it was. It tackled the big mystery of the film in little chunks so it was never really an overload. It was a really fun movie to watch, though the ending (or is that the beginning ) felt a bit cheap and tacked on.

Fantastic stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by mark f:
Well, Bro, I hope you appeciate that this thread goes backwards, at least after the first post!

Well, Bro, I hope you appeciate that this thread goes backwards, at least after the first post!

quote:

Originally posted by Member 27:
I dont think the telling of the story backwards is gimmicky in Memento. Any other film, then yeah, but seeing Memento backwards means you really get inside the main characters head because you never know why events are happening because you have no prior knowledge of them.

I concur. I did not think the manner of presentation was gimmicky at all, either. I think it was actually the best way to show how problematic it is to have anterograde amnesia. Showing only 5 minute segments of events and laying them out in reverse chronological style, like Member 27 said, really gets the viewer inside Leonard's head.

Also, I don't think the "open-ended-ness" of the movie was the real agenda. The thing is, if you have anterograde amnesia, it doesn't really matter what the truth is because you won't remember it. I don't believe the director specifically had the idea of an open ended movie in mind, but rather he wanted to demonstrate that the truth does not carry any weight for someone who's not able to make new memories. The truth and the present become trivial.

The questions I had about some of the looser details of the film were, for the most part, accounted for by the reason I gave above that truth is unimportant. Obviously, Leonard felt that he was being manipulated, but that's why he began to make his own truths, to get more structure going in his life.

Anyway. I just want to say I love this movie.

I loved this movie. It was brilliant and I thought it was cool how it was told backwards.
I was a bit confused after first watching it and had several questions that were not answered.
However, upon careful analysis and reading analysis of it online, I have found a pretty good response to just about every question presented in the movie.
However, one thing still doesnt make sense to me.

POSSIBLE SPOILER:

In the scene at the end of Leonard and his wife in bed, he has the tattoo on his breast that says "I've Done It." This can't be a flashback because we've seen already that he doesn't have the tattoo, so he can't have had it in the past. How can he remember lying in bed with his living wife, with the tattoo "John G. raped and killed my wife" visible on his chest?

That is the only part that truly doesnt make sense to me. If anyone has any questions about other parts they are welcome to ask me and I will try my best to answer.

I thought it was great and though the story wasn't anything special, the presentation was original and executed very well. The only thing that kinda ruined it for me was the ending. It seemed like the movie was kinda made for the ending rather than the other way around. That formula only worked well for The 6th Sense.

quote:

---

Originally posted by K-Dog:
Also, can someone tell me why some of these posts, including mine, are out of order?

---

They're not, they're just being sorted with the new ones at the top and the old ones at the bottom.

I really don't think there's much to figure out here. Memento, though confusing at first, is pretty much explained enough to keep the viewer on track. Of course there were points in the movie where I found myself confused and lost, but every one of these question that I had were answered. The only thing that really is unexplained is the end (or beginning depending on how you look at it) of the movie. However, this is a good thing. Like someone earlier said, it allows the viewer to think what he or she wants, rather than dictating what the viewer MUST think. It gives your mind free reign over the subject. Yes there are good films that provide closure to their narratives, however, it all depends on what the intention of the film maker is. Open endings are many times the better choice.

Also, can someone tell me why some of these posts, including mine, are out of order?

Oh wait, nevermind. "V" just answered my question.

K-Dog

This message has been edited. Last edited by: K-Dog,

One of the great things about Memento is that it is possible to wholly understand the plot, the implications, etc., and yet have wildly varying ideas of what really happened. The movie is almost completely open-ended. There are only two little shoves it gives, namely the face-flash in the mental hospital and the needle-flash before the book-reading flashback scene.

I dont think the telling of the story backwards is gimmicky in Memento. Any other film, then yeah, but seeing Memento backwards means you really get inside the main characters head because you never know why events are happening because you have no prior knowledge of them.

I guess I found Memento really interesting too because I study Educational Psychology as part of my Education degree and it was really interesting to see the stuff the film said about the memory system and stuff.

Ha ha ... no that wasn't me on the user comments, but I do like Les Savy Fav a lot. I'm not good at giving number grades, but I would give it a very high score. SO I guess I have nothing to worry about.

KT,

Did you give "les savy fav" a 9 on the user comments; if so, don't worry about this website, since I agreed with you, and that should be enough. Now, if it was some other punk, then you may have to watch/ listen to it yourself, gettin' outta there. I hope I don't improve my title, but unfortunately, I know I will.

I have seen Memento seven times. Three times, oddly enough, in some form of class setting: for philosophy, for creative writing, for psychology. This alone should give some idea of the scope of this movie. It isn't life-changing, but it's incredibly fun to watch and makes hordes of valuable points. Not to mention that the condition the main character suffers in is very nearly perfectly depicted.

I didn't like Memento all that much, but not because I had to "work" to figure it out.

It's partly I think because by the time I had seen it I had heard so much raving about it that I expected something really great. But mostly it was the fact that, to me, it was not very well written and this fact was disguised by the gimmick of telling the story backwards, so you get caught up in the mystery and don't notice that the story (and the movie) wouldn't be all that good if told forwards.

This story has been done before and done well in Graham Greene's "Ministry of Fear."

I thought the directing and the way of telling the story was clever, but my mind couldn't help but reconstruct the story in a linear way and be disappointed, because I wouldn't have thought it was a good story or movie if told in the conventional way.

Of course, I am more of a literary person than a film person and if the writing grates on me, then I have a hard time enjoying the film even if it is great in other respects. I had the same problem with "American Beauty."

Incredibly good flick. I guess I don't know what you mean by the ending/beginning feeling tacked on. It's funny how a bunch of people don't like the film because they don't like to "work" that hard trying to figure it out.