'Memento' and 'Cinematic Braiding'

 This is one of the finest, smartest, most intellectual, most philosophical, and most engaging pieces of cinema on Planet Earth. This is pre-Batman Christopher Nolan with an actor almost completely unknown to modern cinema. Speak what you may; ask any modern young adult who Guy Pearce is, and I guarantee they can't give you 'Neighbors' or 'Memento.' Which is too bad, because this movie needs more praise, more awards, more absolute perfection than it already has.

'Memento' is the story of Leonard, who suffers from anterograde amnesia, which means he has short-term memory loss and cannot remember anything that happened after a man named John G. raped and murdered his wife. Destined to avenge her murder, the movie tells the story of Leonard's journey of self-discovery and vendetta for his wife, hunting for John G. and fighting to keep his wife's memories alive.

However, the way this movie is edited is unlike almost any other movie out there. It's unique, it's branded, and it's braided, and it's not conventional. That's what makes it so special.

Ingenious director Christopher Nolan took a very unique spin on editing 'Memento.' There are two different kinds of scenes that the audience will be be presented with. On one hand, the movie STARTS with ITS ending, portrayed in color. It then jumps to the beginning of the movie, shown in black-and-white. Constantly jumping back and forth between black-and-white and color sequences, the two scenes finally converge in the middle; the ENDING of the film is the MIDDLE of the story.

Confusing, huh?

Think of it like this. With the black-and-white scenes, we are watching the movie chronologically, whereas with the color sequences, they end with the beginning of the previous scene, with each one building on the last. It's a little confusing and a little surprising when you initially begin the movie, but soon makes sense the deeper into the film you get. Why do this, you may ask?

It's actually ingenious. The movie is edited in this specific fashion to make it more interactive for the audience. As previously stated, Leonard suffers from anterograde amnesia. Hence, he is only able to remember bits and pieces of the present, if anything, and because he can't make new memories, it's impossible for him to remember absolutely anything that happened within the last 2 minutes. Therefore, Christopher Nolan films the movie in the same fashion, slowly revealing to the audience member pieces of the story by piecing them together, almost as though we are suffering the same sort of mental activity that our protagonist Leonard is going through. It's this editing that makes 'Memento' one of the most unique pieces of cinematography in the industry.

'Memento' also heavily utilizes repetitions of various 'close' shots. One of the most particular is the constant reference to his right hand, which brazens a tattoo that reads 'Remember Sammy Jankis.' Sammy Jankis was one of Leonard's clients who was apparently suffering from anterograde amnesia as well. What's so interesting about the use of this shot is how often it's used; much of the time, directors will use close shots to convey emotion, but here, it instead constantly forces the audience to see it and constantly be reminded of this 'Sammy Jankis' character, both for his condition and for what he represents to Leonard. It's this constant repetition that makes the use of the close shot so effective throughout the movie.

This is also done with many of Leonard's 'photographs.' Leonard communicates different details to himself through different pictures he takes through his camera, and the notes he takes are constantly shown throughout the movie. However, the way that Chris Nolan lets us know of the importance of the pictures is by doing the reverse-chronology I was talking about above. We don't see him completely write down the notes without any sort of context, but instead we are presented with a majority of the photographs at the beginning of the movie and are slowly shown what they mean through discovery, in the same way that Leonard has to do it. See the interactivity, it's what makes the movie so incredibly engaging from start to finish.

Overall, this movie is incredible. If you haven't seen it, this is not a suggesion: this is one of the best movie, literally ever. Guy Pearce is incredibl, the story is incredible; this is the best example of a modern Film Noir that outlines concepts of memory, reality, and trust, and by the time the credits roll, your mind will be bent so far back, you may start suffering from anterograde amnesia yourself.