Memento

Review - "How can I expect to heal when I can't feel time?"  The thought resounds well after the lights have come on and the theater has emptied.  Well after the drive home, a night's rest, and back to work again.  I believe it's a point of reference I will never lose. A stunning victory after seeing Christopher Nolan's excellent film, Memento.

Guy Pearce plays Lenny.  An ex-insurance investigator who suffered a form of brain damage during his wife's rape and murder.  The damage to Lenny is a form of amnesia that prevents him from creating new memories.  However, Lenny has found a system for coping with his memory loss.  He carries a Polaroid camera and takes many photos of 'the' important things: where he's staying, friends, his car, etc. He also makes notes, but rather than collecting a variety of paper scribbling Lenny's decided to tattoo himself: "John G. Raped and Murdered My Wife",  "Find Him And Kill Him", "The Facts", etc.  Are you beginning to get the picture?

Good, now write it down before you forget it.  Memento can be a difficult film to watch.  Told entirely in reverse, it holds no bones about losing its audience, to it's pace or direction.  It's a challenging, demanding film and excellently told.

This should be an $8 film.  It really is one but I've nit-picked a bit and have found myself a slave to anger over a detail or two. Nothing to fret, I imagine because in the end...I won't remember anyway.

-m-