Memento is a movie released in 2000. Its IMDB ranking is 8.6. It was nominated for 2 Oscars. It is liked by Kanav. That’s all for good things about this movie.
The story in this movie moves backward while keeping one more parallel track moving in forward direction which is in black and white. The track which moves in backward direction is further split in number of tracks each of length 10-15 minutes, which move in forward direction. Quite complex, right? You might have guessed one of the category it would have got nominated for Oscar – Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. The other category is Best Editing.
I got to watch it on Wednesday evening with our usual movie-buff herd of Sector 14. We were four. We found it quite confusing and so complex that two of us slept in between and had to be brought back into reality. I might had not written about it but there were somethings which held me back for 2 days to write anything before publishing my this post about Memento experience. During whole movie, you have to keep your eyes and ears open while running your brain to understand what has happened and what would had happened before that particular scene. And at the end of movie, you come to know that you have been made a big time fool. You have to discuss movie all over again with your mates to make out what was the actual story. And then, you have to go to Wikipedia page about movie to get somewhat more knowledge and to realize that movie was based on quite complex subject/plot – neo-noir–psychological thriller. You are still unable to come to some concluding result where you can say that you understood the movie. Then you get mails next day clearing about the story and the plot.
So never ever watch a movie, the plot of which is not digestible. In short, this movie is quite a nice idea to make a confusing week by watching it on a weekday (discussion over it is continued) unless it is followed by great healthy discussion which makes you feel great.
Although we 3 of 4 didn’t like it but there was one who liked it – I already mentioned the guy. So after movie was over, it was followed by a big discussion which wasn’t expected by anyone of us till the guy who was awake for last 20 hours showed interest in taking this discussion forward. So finally, because of the points mentioned above, it was unanimously agreed upon that movie was a bit different and wasn’t made for intellectuals like us. Then there was discussion about movies falling in same category – A Beautiful Mind (was a great experience) and 15 Park Avenue (the bottom-line of such kind of movies). From 15 Park Avenue, there started discussion about Art movies and it turned out that only Anish likes Art movies and he also liked Raincoat. Then there was a turn about Pirates Of Caribbean from a point about love. Kanav is going to watch this sequel in a day or two as he hasn’t watched any part of it while Rajat was disappointed from the way the Keira Knightley falls in love with Johnny Depp at first stance – love at first sight. We were baffled from the way a girl had fallen in love at first sight and she accepted it…in real life, we couldn’t recall any such incident where anything like it had happened. It has always been a guy who confess fall in love while most of the times, a girl either doesn’t know if she is in love or it is just a friendship or it is nothing at all!! We all were laughing and rolling after that and swearing that we will wait till the end of universe to hear something from our girls than admitting our side.
The next day, after a movie on weekday with friends and a good night’s sleep, there was email conversation discussing about that movie and it was concorded that we are at the stage where we can decide which movie is god or bad. And if you can’t recommend a movie to your friends or mates, that means, this movie wasn’t worth watching. There was a small excerpt from wikipedia which explained movie completely. Also it was found that movie FAQ was FAQ of the week at IMDB site and it appeared at top of landing page of IMDB. And in the FAQ, it is also found out (see Is there a final truth to MEMENTO?), there is no surety that the movie holds an ending which can be commonly agreed upon.
Nolan himself appeared to have changed his mind or just chose to play with the minds of the viewers. There are several alternate (hidden) commentary tracks on several of the DVD versions (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/faq#.2.1.21 where Nolan provides alternate possibilities and conclusions. Since what he states in them is mutually exclusive, at least one of them is a lie…
But still it was said,
If we can’t get 100% about the movie, even then we can enjoy it!