Altanzitarron
Tamer Of The LOLzilla
Most of you will now know Christopher Nolan for his reboot of the Batman series and possibley "The Prestige". However there is one other gem in his film writing / directing career that I feel has been completely over looked by this forum. That film is Memento, and I'm going to explain to you all why it is worthy of your attention.
Christopher Nolan loves to play around with narrative, his films don't necesarily begin at the start of the story and like wise don't end at the end. If you've seen Batman Begins or The prestige (I havn't seen the Dark knight yet) you will understand what I'm talking about. In fact he seems to feel completely unbound by the standard way in which a story unfolds at all. This makes him one of the greatest directors of our time.
The plot of Memento is basically this; A man's home is invaded, he is attacked and his wife is raped and killed. The man, played by Guy Pearce (L.A confidential) suffers brain trauma from his attack and can no longer develop new memories. In other words his short term memory fades after a short period of time. He attempts to track down his wifes killer regardless of his disability by writing all the clues he discovers on his body in the form of tatoos. The plot is interesting as it stands however this is not the main drawing point of Memento.
The fantastic thing about Memento is that the plot actually unfolds backwards! Every scene that happens actually preceeds the scene that it follows chronologically. Also to add this complete disruption of story telling is that, every scene thats working backwards has a black and white scene in between it. The black and white scenes are all moving forwards in chronology and you learn that these scenes take place before all the colour scenes. So what you have is two time lines weaving in and out of eachother in opposite directions untill they actually join up. I know it sounds confusing but trust me it is a confusion that you will enjoy. Once you see this film you will instantly want to watch it again so that you can understand it further.
Memento is a must see for anyone who has realised what a great director Christopher Nolan is.
Christopher Nolan loves to play around with narrative, his films don't necesarily begin at the start of the story and like wise don't end at the end. If you've seen Batman Begins or The prestige (I havn't seen the Dark knight yet) you will understand what I'm talking about. In fact he seems to feel completely unbound by the standard way in which a story unfolds at all. This makes him one of the greatest directors of our time.
The plot of Memento is basically this; A man's home is invaded, he is attacked and his wife is raped and killed. The man, played by Guy Pearce (L.A confidential) suffers brain trauma from his attack and can no longer develop new memories. In other words his short term memory fades after a short period of time. He attempts to track down his wifes killer regardless of his disability by writing all the clues he discovers on his body in the form of tatoos. The plot is interesting as it stands however this is not the main drawing point of Memento.
The fantastic thing about Memento is that the plot actually unfolds backwards! Every scene that happens actually preceeds the scene that it follows chronologically. Also to add this complete disruption of story telling is that, every scene thats working backwards has a black and white scene in between it. The black and white scenes are all moving forwards in chronology and you learn that these scenes take place before all the colour scenes. So what you have is two time lines weaving in and out of eachother in opposite directions untill they actually join up. I know it sounds confusing but trust me it is a confusion that you will enjoy. Once you see this film you will instantly want to watch it again so that you can understand it further.
Memento is a must see for anyone who has realised what a great director Christopher Nolan is.
