Memento

Tools    





MovieForums Extra
I can't believe no one's mentioned this movie yet!!

I just saw it at the flicks the other day, I gotta say I absolutely loved it! It is easily one of the most complicated and mind boggling movies I have ever seen! Also one of the most original movies I have seen in a loooong while!!

It starts of showing a shooting scene backwards, it basically deals with a guy who had an accident and since then is unable to form new short-term memories. So basically he lives his life with polaroids, notes etc. telling him what's what. And to add to that, he is trying to piece together who raped and murdured his wife...

A great movie from start to finish. In the beginning you understand everything that's going on, but because of the nature of the guy's condition (played by Guy Pearce), the movie flows 'backwards' - in other words each successive scene happens before the last one...kinda confusing, eh?!

Definitely go and check it out, it gets a cool 9.5/10 on my scale
__________________
Black Holes Suck!



bigvalbowski's Avatar
Registered User
Definitely one of the best films of recent years, Memento demands lots of discussion.

Unfortunately, there are idiots who have picked out flaws in the plot. How could Pearce remember having short-term memory loss, etc? Rubbish! A film with such a complicated plot will obviously have holes. They shouldn't take away from the fun.

A must own.

* SPOILERS *

So to anyone who has seen the film, could you try to explain the reason behind other short term memory guy's flashback?

Was that really just Pearce's character but he didn't want to remember it? I find it too much of a coincidence that he could meet somebody with such a rare condition and then get the condition himself.

Loved the diabetes scene, pretty darn intense.
__________________
I couldn't believe that she knew my name. Some of my best friends didn't know my name.



MovieForums Extra
I am really not sure what happened! I'll give it a shot!

SPOILERS BELOW!!
.
..
...
....
.....

You asked whether it was possible for him to realise he had the condition...I'm pretty sure that he could, because he could remember things that happened before the accident, but not after (since he constantly forgets)...I'm wondering if this makes much sense !!

But I am completely confused about the diabetes guy...what is the other alternative? That the guy he was investigating was a fraud, and this was discovered, then the accident happened, then he somehow got the same condition...

AAAGGHHH this movie really does a good job of scrambling your brains!! HEELLPPP!!



bigvalbowski's Avatar
Registered User
** LOTS OF SPOILERS **

I think Pearce's character is more twisted than we ever realise. Joe Pantoliano says that Pearce already killed his wife's murderer but Pearce refuses to accept this. Because he can't remember killing that man, he cannot escape the anger that he feels towards him. He has a chance to offload the anger but he destroys the photo. In fifteen minutes his conscience will clear, no longer will he be able to remember the two men he killed, he could go on forever, he is psychotic.

I'm thinking that the "Diabetes Guy" was actually Pearce himself. However, his memory is so hazy that he has developed a story about a different man. So perhaps, Pearce killed his own wife with the diabetes shot and has only concocted this tale about his wife's murder.

I think if you take it this way, the film is even more satisfying.

Great Film. I just hope Pearce gets the same sort of recognition as his fellow LA Confidential star because he's just as good.



um, all of u go see this movie now. that said, out come the spoilers

.
..
...
....

i feel Pearce having Sammie to remember, plus having habitualized explaining what happened as they tried having the Sammie habitualize not picking the certain shapes, is enough to explain his why he understood his problem and could explain it. for Pearce's wife to have had diabetes as 'teddy' stated, and to have survived the assault, then that would mean she would have been able to attest to the number of people who were committing the crime. although this information could easily have been contained in the 12 missing pages of the police report leaving Pearce to claim it was really Sammie, this doesnt fly with 'Teddy' having stated that he was the only police officer to have believed Pearce. From this we can assume that 'Teddy' has lied to Pearce at some point or points during the movie.

That said, it would appear that since 'Teddy' is the only one who knew of the alleged police officer calling/leaving envelopes, we can also assume that he was the one who had done this. The questions remaining appear to be:

A)First and foremost, was 'Teddy' in fact the J--- G--- in question, was it Natalie's boyfriend, or was it the guy we didnt see die?

B)To help us get there, how did 'Teddy' and Natalie know each other (as was often pointed out throughout the film, and casts doubt on his being a police officer)?

C)Idle curiousity, when the picture was taken of Pearce being happy after supposedly killing J--- G---, which tattoos did he have?

D)Quite possibly irrelevant, why was there a bandage over the tattoo saying 'Dont answer the phone'?
__________________
Alan Crank - [email protected]
Wish I owned MovieForums.com!
"Damnit Jim, I'm an insomniac, not a web designer."



MovieForums Extra
I just went and saw the movie for a second time in order to get it clear...!

SPOILERS!



It becomes *a little* clearer the second time around, especially by the time you get to the end. Obviously Pearce had found the killer and killed him, then blanked out all references that could link him to the crime...In the final monologue (which is really the beginning), he writes down Teddy's number plate and says "you can be my John G". He then takes the drug dealer's car, and assumes his identity (which is how he meets Natalie). Pearce did it to justify his new life, what he had become, and to give himself a purpose to live...

Teddy had a connection with the drug dealer that was killed in the end with whom Pearce changed clothes (he was in on a deal for a whole load of money). Pearce sets Teddy up, takes the dealer's car, and drives to the bar (where Natalie is surprised to see him in the dealer's car)...the rest is history.

B)To help us get there, how did 'Teddy' and Natalie know each other (as was often pointed out throughout the film, and casts doubt on his being a police officer)?
Simple. Natalie and the drug dealer conspired to take the 200K from her boyfriend, Dodd. Teddy had the deal with the drug dealer, so the connection is there...

As for his being a real cop, he is (because he shows a proper badge), but he is crooked and corrupt (as he himself admits).



*****SPOILERS GALORE*****
*****SPOILERS GALORE*****

My take is that there really was a Sammy, which was Leonard's first big insurance claim case. But what Teddy says at the end is virtually ALL TRUE, including the fact that Sammy was a conman who wasn't even married. Leonard had Sammy's claim denied because there was proven no physical cause. Leonard has jumbled together in his mind Sammy's story with his own. Leonard is the one whose wife was diabetic, which is why in flashback, we do finally see him giving her the insulin shot, then flash to his manufactured memory of him simply pinching her thigh, as he WANTS to remember it.

Leonard's wife DID survive the rape attack, which is why twice they show her eye blinking beneath the shower curtain. But he got his head injury at that time. Leonard is the one who spent time in the psychiatric hospital after accidently killing her with the insulin overdose. In the Sammy b/w scenes at the hospital, Sammy CHANGES into Leonard for a second. After escaping the hospital, Leonard starts his hunt for "the killer". The only way he can survive is to give himself this reason to live.

As Leonard says at the end, he MUST forget everything Teddy told him. He is purposely making himself forget the truths which do not fit the scenario of the rapist having killed his wife. That is why Leonard himself removed pages from the police report and blacked out other sections.

Anyway, I saw this film twice in 2 days, and I was even more impressed the second time. I've been a fan of Guy's since "The Adventures of Priscilla", and thought he was terrific in this. His dry delivery lent the film a humor I wasn't expecting. ("Hmmmm, I must be chasing this guy. No, he's chasing me.")



Folks: There are three really important questions here.

1. WHY does Leonard have NO tattoos in the photo taken of him after he has supposedly killed J. G. (the photo Teddy shows him, where he is grinning and bare-chested)?

2. WHAT is the meaning of the very last scene of the movie, in which he is shown lying next to his "wife", but with the tattoos already on his chest? Let's say she survived, but he has short term memory loss. She was lying next to him while the words "John G. raped and murdered your wife" were tattooed on his chest? I don't think so!

3. Why would Natalie want Dodd killed? He was trying to avenge the death of her boyfriend, the drug dealer Jimmy, by Leonard.

Sam



Registered User
With this film I think ultimately we're required to make some decisions -decisions that I would argue are a heck of a lot more big than what happened in a movie. What film so far has required and expected so much from us!

The inclination that I've been struggling with over this film is how to reconcile the problems that have been discussed above. The 'truthfulness' of sammy or leonards condition as opposed to the 'truth' of Teddy's claims about his case in the critical scene (Of note -Klein at salon.com has done well to isolate these problems, his article is clear and sets up some good models for thinking about this film).

The decision that I think we need to make is whether or not this reconciliation and comparision of conflicting scenes really gets us anything at all -what is it worth? What does it say about the way that we decide or generate the truthfulness of something if by our methods of reconciliation we find ourselves unable to formulate declaritive sentences about this film. How much more valuable are the truths located in Leonard's act of taking the place of his manipulator, of identifying and subverting the systems that tear his life from him!

It may not be a very good life, but at the moment he writes down the license plate #, he takes it back.
[email protected]



I ain't gettin' in no fryer!
Ok, I haven't seen this movie cause the bastards at the theater here decided not to show it. It looks very good, and I can't wait for it to come out on dvd. I might just buy it before i watch it
__________________
"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg