Memento

89/100 A man uses tattoos, notes and photographs to hunt down his wife's killer as he has lost his ability to create new memories. This early effort by Christopher Nolan ("The Dark Knight", "Inception") is sheer genius. Starting at the end of the story and then continually leap frogging back short periods denies the viewer any memory leading up the current events placing them in the same mental condition as our protagonist. Despite this, the end, which is the beginning, still manages to provide a profound twist re...

A similar style to Inception, pay attention or you’ll lose it

I reckon what makes this work from Christopher Nolan is the creation of a cerebral maelstrom that is every bit as confusingly frustrating for us watching as it is for his protagonist "Leonard" (Guy Pearce). Now we don't know how he has developed his menacing ninja skills, but we do know that he is trying to get to the bottom of his wife's murder, and that he has virtually no short-term memory to help him. As he pieces things together, he has to leave himself notes, or polaroids augmented with scribbles so he can r...

Phenomenal. What a movie! I had heard plenty about <em>'Memento'</em> prior to watching in regards to how high-quality it supposedly was, though didn't actually (thankfully) get spoiled on anything that occurs onscreen - I did know of the note-taking, though for some reason thought it was via post-it notes rather than polaroids - no idea why! It's a very satisfying movie come the conclusion, concentration is very much the order of the day but the film does connect enough dots rather sharpish. I thoroughly apprecia...

Structuring the film in such a way that the viewer knows as little as the protagonist, the Nolan's have created a nifty puzzle that slowly unravels to its climax. 8/10

‘Memento’ is director Christopher Nolan’s tribute to classic film noir tales of revenge and mystery. By adding a new twist to traditional conventions, Nolan is able to consume and grip the viewer throughout the entire film and for years after. The aspect that differentiates this neo-noir from its competitors today is its jumbled and complex narrative which continually moves backwards in time. The viewers first see the main character complete his revenge murder (a triumphant scene we usually associate with the endi...