Memento

[RobB]

'Memento'....I missed this at the cinema but have now watched it on dvd and wow,what a brilliant film it is.
The gimmick of starting the film at the end of the story and then working backwards to end the film at the beginning never detracts from this excellent revenge thriller.
Even an ex-Neighbours actor couldn't spoil the film for me.

[alx5962]

I know there's another cut with right timeline order, don't know if it was official or not.

[sound world]

Funnily enough I just picked up the video in a charity shop and made a note to watch it sometime over the weekend.I've heard so many rave reviews.

[RobB]

I know there's another cut with right timeline order, don't know if it was official or not.

Yes,its an Easter Egg (quite appropriately for the time of year I guess ) on the 'special edition' issue.
I've watched it on my 3 disc version anyway and its very entertaining to watch the whole movie again,this time with all the individual scenes placed in their correct chronological order.

It was interesting to hear Guy Pearce remark,when asked if it was a confusing film to make,that all films are shot out of sequence anyway so that this one was no differnet to any others he'd made.

[RobB]

Funnily enough I just picked up the video in a charity shop and made a note to watch it sometime over the weekend.I've heard so many rave reviews.

The problem with 'rave reviews' is that they tend to raise your expectations too much.
Its a good solid thriller which you have to concentrate on and will have to watch a few times to take it all in.
So,keep in the warm this weekend,put your feet up and.......enjoy.

[sound world]

A really intriguing film,although I found it deeply disturbing.Since I hardly ever watch TV or movies I find the kind of everyday violence in such a movie to be really shocking,but once I'd got past that a bit,and accepted that it's a very important part of the whole structure of the film,I found it fascinating; and,as I said,disturbing insofar as it becomes progressively clearer that the 'hero' may well be the victim of all kinds of heaped-up delusions,including the central premise that leads him to commit acts of revenge in the first place.At the end of the film I thought there were no simple solutions at all; but I felt incredibly sorry for the guy in his condition,seemingly forever condemned to continue an increasingly crazed cycle of violence and open to exploitation by anyone who crosses his path,and never able to realise this.
Actually Rob,it's not totally backwards-the b/w bits are going forwards to the point where he kills Jimmy,at which moment the colouring of the exposed Polaroid is reflected in the whole background.A brilliant stroke.
A tour-de-force of direction,it reminded me of 'Groundhog Day' and 'Mulholland Drive' in the way it played with time.
I'm glad I bought the video (99p ),so I can watch it again sometime.It's one of those type of films isn't it? I have to say Lisa really didn't like it,too violent and bleak.

[RobB]

Actually Rob,it's not totally backwards-the b/w bits are going forwards to the point where he kills Jimmy,at which moment the colouring of the exposed Polaroid is reflected in the whole background.

Yeah,I know but I wasn't going to dissect the film before anyone who hadn't seen it had had a chance to see it.
Get the dvd and watch the 'special features' .......worth the money just to see the film in chronological order.

[blue]

One of my all-time favourite movies. Guy Pearce is heartbreaking, for all his meticulous attempts to control the chaos he lives in. I love the way we start off thinking he's so in control and so well-organised, and gradually come to realise how terrifyingly vulnerable and dangerous he is.

I think it's telling that in his last memory of his wife - as she's lying on the bathroom floor after being attacked - she's still alive. There's no objective proof she actually died, and then there's all those sections mysteriously blacked out of the police reports ....

Really brilliant, moving film.

[paul-pgss]

I know there's another cut with right timeline order, don't know if it was official or not.

I believe that the dvd has an option to view it in the right timeline order. I never watched it though. I recently saw the movie again after a few years. I really keep on seeing new things again and again.

[blue]

I have the 3-disc special edition and watched the chronological version once, it's an interesting diversion but loses a good deal of the psychological power of the original cut, I think.

[sound world]

Strangely enough,I'm just reading Oliver Sacks' 'Musicophilia',in which there is a chapter devoted to (real) people with this condition,unable to recall events which happened to them more than a few seconds earlier. Luckily nobody in the book is in the spiral of violence and paranoia that Guy Pearce inhabits,but their lives can be just as terrifying. Astonishingly (or perhaps not) for many of them,music is the means whereby they get a handle on life and are able to function more-or-less 'normally'.
There's also a chapter in his book 'The man who mistook his wife for a hat' (wonderful title,wonderful book) called 'The Lost Mariner',about just such a person whose memory effectively ended sometime at the end of the last war when he was serving in the US Navy. Very well worth reading-Oliver Sacks is such a compassionate and articulate writer about ordinary people who are made extraordinary by the mysteries of the human brain .

[blue]

Strangely enough,I'm just reading Oliver Sacks' 'Musicophilia',in which there is a chapter devoted to (real) people with this condition,unable to recall events which happened to them more than a few seconds earlier. Luckily nobody in the book is in the spiral of violence and paranoia that Guy Pearce inhabits,but their lives can be just as terrifying. Astonishingly (or perhaps not) for many of them,music is the means whereby they get a handle on life and are able to function more-or-less 'normally'.

It's astonishing isn't it - I watched a TV documentary one night on the same subject, following the daily life of a man who has this condition. It's like he's continually waking up, with no idea what's going on around him. And yet he would sit down at the piano and play entire pieces from memory, with no score.

There's also a chapter in his book 'The man who mistook his wife for a hat' (wonderful title,wonderful book)

One of the most fascinating and terrifying books I've ever read. I've had it on my shelf for years now and occasionally re-read it when I'm feeling sorry for myself and thinking my life is shit, just to give myself a mental slap in the face. The precarious neurological knife-edge we all live on is so sharply and brilliantly delineated in this book, you cannot come away from it unmoved and without feeling intensely grateful for your normal, everyday, boring life.

[RobB]

'Memento' fans should check out 'The Machinist' which is another sombre film which keeps you guessing.