Calum Gilchrist
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Review: Memento
5th March
Memento is one of my favourite films, I’ve seen it roughly 3 times and I’ve always enjoyed it. It’s one of those films that you learn more about it and catch more subtle things as you watch it more and more.
The hook to Memento is that the main character has a memory problem, he has no short term memory. So every 10 minutes he completely forgets where he is, how he got there and what he’s doing. The interesting thing about this is that you experience this as well. All the scenes are in reverse order, so you see the end first. It’s a really unique and cool way to see a film and it works brilliantly.
This makes it really easy to relate to the protagonist as you know as much as he does. You know where he’s going but not where he’s been. This leads to many really interesting plot points. The lead character, who’s name escapes me was really interesting and I really liked him and felt sorry for him. At the same time it was impressive to see a way that someone could try to deal with a condition like that.
My favourite scene in the film simply shows the protagonist running through a trailer park and he notices someone else is running, he assumes he’s chasing the other guy. But it’s the other way around. This scene really defines just how weird it must be to not even know that you are being chased by someone.
Films that keep you thinking and pull of such nice little hooks always tend to be much higher in my list. As I’m not a huge fan of mindless action films as I’ve probably said in my past reviews. But luckily Memento is nothing like these, and I’m not sure why I brought them up.
Memento 5/5
