Memento

(If, somehow, you haven’t yet seen Memento and you intend to, go out and watch it right now. I’ll wait. It’s on Netflix Instant. Go and come back – you really don’t want to know anything going in the first time.)

It has been several years since I last rewatched Memento, and I have to say it only gets better with age. Christopher Nolan has been all over the news in the past few years, between the critical acclaim for The Dark Knight and the slightly more mixed but still enthusiastic reaction to this summer’s Inception. But in rewatching Memento, I couldn’t help but wonder if he’ll ever make another film this tightly constructed again.

I am certainly not the first to wonder if filmmakers under constraint make better films, and I will be far from the last. But I think that giving the whole credit to the film’s minimalism is to undersell what an excellent neo-noir it really is. It’s not just good for a small, independent film; it’s good, period.

The acting is really quite stellar, from the entire cast. Guy Pearce is an actor I still expect to become a big deal, and he hasn’t quite managed yet; he was in the semi-blockbuster Count of Monte Cristo, and pretty much everyone agrees he was excellent in L.A. Confidential, but in trying to come up with more recent examples of his skill, everyone seems to be stuck beyond about 2003. (I’d forgotten, but I had a small moment of glee seeing him ever so briefly in The Hurt Locker.) But here, he’s in top form, making a conceit that could easily swing into ridiculousness utterly believable, heartbreaking and terrifying. Carrie-Anne Moss also turns in a remarkably cutting, chilling performance as Natalie.

The cast also really has a handle on the black humor that leavens the script; I forgot until I rewatched it how often the movie coaxes a genuine laugh, if one tinged with nerves. The atmosphere, while terse, is not without tenderness or levity, which makes the terrible things that happen all the worse.

The filming is clever without looking clever. The black and white forward-moving section and the color backward-moving section are both sharply lit, and look of a piece with one another. When they merge, it seems appropriate. As an audience member, it doesn’t feel like a trick but like a reveal. The nods to classic noir are certainly there: windows and window-coverings like blinds and curtains are everywhere in the frame.  The lighting is really remarkable, but doesn’t grab your attention on first viewing. We’re constantly given information that, like Leonard, we have a limited ability to decode.

No review of Memento can ignore the strength of its screenplay. The idea of tiny segments, arranged backward, is so elegantly simple it’s insane. The film puts the viewer in its protagonist’s shoes, repeatedly dropping us in medias res to try and decode the story as best we can. Unlike Leonard, however, we can retain what happens next, adding it on to what we learn each time. By adding the forward-moving half the narrative, the filmmakers also ensure we have some sort of context.

(I also love how the phone conversations seem, at first, simply a convenient way to unload exposition, but then turn out to be a character reveal for Teddy as well as a small building block in Leonard’s interaction with the hotel clerk.)

The thing about Memento is that is genuinely thrilling. The sense of isolation it creates is pervasive and complete, moreso than even the characters can be fully aware of. The subtle ways in which is builds paranoia are remarkable. What’s crossed out on the back of Natalie’s photograph? Why are things missing from the police files? How does he have a Jaguar when he clearly can’t work?

I imagine, though I don’t know, that The Prestige would have been a bit more like this film if it weren’t, by necessity, a creature of Hollywood. But that’s just speculation.

What’s not speculation is that Memento is one of my very favorite modern noirs, and rewatching it is always a pleasure. Rewatching it with someone who’s never seen it before is doubly rewarding. It is not for everyone, I admit – I’ve had several people I respect tell me they loathe it. But for me, I think it already looks timeless, and I look forward to watching it 20 or 30 years from now with the same pleasure I do today.

Grade: A I can think of nothing I would change in this movie; even its imperfections support the whole.