Thursday, July 19, 2012

"Memento"

Christopher Nolan's second outing certainly outdoes his first, and by a substantial margin. Continuing his use of the non-linear, he tells the story of a man with no short-term memory trying to piece together his wife's rape and murder. That single decision is what makes this movie so amazing. We can toss aside* the fact that Guy Pearce was absolutely incredible in this movie**, Carrie-Anne Moss was by far his greatest female casting decision in any of his movies***, the dark and harsh lighted cinematography**** that fit the story so well, and emotional investment you feel whilst watching it*****. Christopher Nolan's ability to tell a story using the non-linear (and this may be his most linear of his non-linear movies, if that makes sense) made this movie. I try to imagine what it would be like to re-edit this movie and tell it all in chronological order, and whilst I have not done that, I am fairly confident in saying that it certainly would not be the same, not even close to the same. This was the aspect that, whilst it is a part of the movie, made the movie greater than the sum of it's parts.

*We can't really toss aside these aspects, they are intricate parts of what makes the movie great. That would be like saying the Transformers movies are great as long as we toss aside Michael Bay.

**Seriously, I'm not a huge Guy Pearce fan, but he was a-ma-za-zing! Plus I wish I looked like that with my shirt off, tattoos and all.

***Hilary Swank, Katie Holmes, Scarlett Johansson, Maggie Gyllenhaal? Really?

****Enter Wally Pfister!

*****Not enough can be said about this. If you don't feel it, if you aren't drawn in by it, you're probably a ginger with no soul covered in freckles from all the souls you have stolen from others.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/

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