MEMENTO Director: Christopher Nolan
								"I'm trying to put together that narrative influence that I see used more freely in books. And to me it really is a question of finding the most suitable order for releasing information to the audience and not feeling any responsibility to do it chronologically, just like we don't in life." Christopher Nolan from Indiewire.com
				Whoa! this guy's memory is hazy!
		This guy -- played by Guy Pierce -- is determined to find the man who raped and murdered his wife but since he was hit over the head he suffers a severe memory problem. He can't remember what just happened to him five minutes ago, which makes it awful difficult to pursue a killer. But he tries to by taking notes, snappingpolaroids of the people around him and by tatooing backward messages on his body as a mnemonic device so when he looks in the mirror he will remember his mission in life. Because of his memory loss, a couple of hucksters (played by Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano) manipulate and use him for their own gains knowing full well he won't remember a thing. The film is both ingenious and gimmicky. Ingenious, because the narrative of the main story moves in reverse. The film's first scene is the last scene and the last scene is the first. It's a mystery that moves backwards and because of this technique it's easy for the audience to get confused. But it's pretty gimmicky too since it holds our interest mainly because of it's narrative structure. And by the end it is so tricky you may feel the need to see it again (or wait until the DVD comes out and watch the whole thing in reverse). Overall, it's a mobius strip of memories, lies, what-if's and what-may-have-beens. The film directed by Christopher Nolan, says a lot about memory (or the lack thereof) and if you have a good memory it may remind you of some older movies. If you were around in the 1990's and watched indie films it may remind you of Suture (which has a clever narrative logic). If you can recall the 1960's then you may see similarities with Point Blank (which has a revenge factor and shuffles around the narrative) or you may somehow be reminded of Last Year at Marienbad - a film that deals with the nature of memory in an intellectually arty way. If anything, Memento does that rare thing; it makes the audience think about what they are seeing and consider the implications of the action they have seen. Due to this too it may have many questioning their own memory when it's over. When you get home you may feel you've forgotten just what you've seen.
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