Memento

Context

I ended-up watching some movies recently. One of them ended-up being Memento. Movies were good but I had no idea for a post until yesterday.

Idea

The idea is that things that are not expressed may end-up being non-existing in the first place. This may not be an idea behind the movie but this is the idea behind the post in its way.

Movie

The movie is an interesting patchwork of scenes that go in reverse chronological order. Each has its own references mostly in regard to questions of memory and communication. I found topic of drugs abuse and isolation being represented too but more indirectly.

There is a different way of looking when one checks a movie or probably even a text backwards. This may allow one to see more references and get more from each scene by itself. In this way movie offers double value from the first watch because one can see scenes in isolation from the first watch while always seeking to understand what is going on.

I like how tattoos got their own living on a body. But then there are index-cards and beer-mats for communication with others and oneself. I wonder how this is not a comedy and probably I was watching it too seriously. There is way more humor than what I was able to appreciate because I was watching it too seriously. I was watching it a second time probably and was more like a detective to have something to write after. Humor in the movie is absurd yet consistent with a serious plot. If Nolan did not emphasize the depth of the topic the movie could compete with some Guy Ritchie stuff but maybe the first-watch impression is more like that which is cool.

In a way one respects the determination. Then as a bonus there is also this odd innocence when he does not know what he have done recently. But then there is a bunch of rewritten memories so one can see why this obliviousness and determination would make sense from more psychological point of view. So under the surface is quite bad mess.

Everybody uses the protagonist here and there. But he uses them too because they assist in constructing/execution of “his” scenario and they are part of the external system.

The protagonist does not like to remember he likes to forget. By closing the eyes in the past he solves unwinding of the impossible maze in the current.