memento
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Let's start from the beginning again, Jeff. Tell me everything you saw, and what you think it means."
---Lisa (Grace Kelly) in Rear Window (1954)
When we remember a movie, we usually recall it as a connected sequence of events. We do what Lisa asks Jeff (Jimmy Stewart) in Rear Window: tell ourselves what we saw, and interpret it. The result is a story. Since the early days of Hollywood, a plot-heavy, protagonist-driven film is praised for solving all the mysteries it stirs. "Memento," the second neo-noir thriller by young British filmmaker, Christopher Nolan, encourages viewers to participate in the puzzle, working backward from the beginning to piece their own story, based on the killer's motivation.
Movies exist in a continuous present, told through the objective third-person narration of all-knowing historians, a God-like presence that understands something outside the described events. In "Memento," narrative surprises pop up through reverse-order flashbacks in stark black-and-white. Don't make the mistake of calling them memories...