Memento

The film Memento became a hit back in the early 2000's.  People were intrigued by the unique plot and editing of the movie. Unlike other movies, Memento made the audience think and piece the movie together. It was almost like puzzle to find out who murdered Leonard's wife, or so I thought.  The movie also received Academy Award nominations in Original Screenplay and Film Editing.

I was impressed by how much thought had to be put into the film in order to play the events in reverse order in a way that still made sense. It's no wonder it was up for Film Editing, the movie was stitched together perfectly to tell a story in a non-linear way. Another part of the movie I found interesting was how you could always tell when Leonard was thinking to himself. The movie was always in color when they were telling us the story in short bits, but when he was talking on the phone it was in black and white. At first I thought they did this to make the audience feel like they were in the mind of Leonard and could relate to his short term memory, but then I realized they couldn't make the audience forget what they had already saw.  I think the director just did it to make it clear to the audience that he was breaking his biggest rule.

One part of the movie that I thought had really interesting editing was the photograph in the beginning of the movie. The photograph went from showing the actually picture to gradually fading away to white and then it was back in the camera. It was the perfect attention getter and gave the audience a taste of how the movie was going to go from there.

In my opinion, I don't think the director never wanted anyone in the audience to have the upper hand throughout the movie. I think he wanted everyone to be slightly confused so they would pay attention even more to every detail. I felt like I was being lead in the direction of Teddy being his friend and Natalie being his lover but then all of a sudden everything changed. Although I felt like I was supposed to be confused. I wasn't the biggest fan of being tugged in all different directions throughout the whole movie.

Basically, this movie is all about vengeance.  Leonard spends the whole movie seeking vengeance for the murder of his wife, but in the end we find out he already got it but doesn't remember. I think that is telling the audience that getting vengeance for something doesn't always solve all of your problems. Maybe everyone can take some notes of what not do and learn to just move on.