Session Three / Memento

This was one of the most bizarre movies I have ever watched.  I can't stop replaying the events in my mind, trying to figure out what really happened.  The visual image flow of this movie was amazingly clever.  The film alternated between black and white scenes and color scenes.   The black and white scenes were actual real time happenings, while the color scenes were what had already transpired, similar to a replay of events.  Of course, during the first viewing of the film, you may not even realize the sequencing is set up this way.

This film used every point of view mentioned in the book, and then some!  Some of the scenes in the film were memories, some were false memories and some were simply fabricated stories that others had planted and presented as reality.  I would say that most of the scenes were from the subjective point of view, building up the psychological situation, bit by bit.   The director's interpretive point of view was evident.  He definitely manipulated our point of view with special angles, color to black and white, showing scenes in both present and past tense and even starting the movie with a scene that was shot in reverse action.

The director also made use of focusing the attention on the most significant object many times during the movie.  During some scenes, that was the polaroid photographs with clues scribbled on the backs.  Other times it was the tattoos that covered Lenny's body and gave permanent clues to the identity of his wife's killer.

Use of close-ups were effective during the black and white scenes when Lenny is on the telephone in his hotel room, telling the story of his past as an insurance investigator to an unknown caller.  This movie had almost non-stop action and used several techniques to keep the images in motion.  Camera angles, color, and filtering added to some of the scene's suspense.  This was especially noticeable during the warehouse scenes and in the scene where Lenny's wife was attacked and he was hurt.

There were no special effects used in this movie, but then again why would they need them?  With all the action, twists and turns, suspense and confusion, there was no need for special effects.  In fact I think they would have taken away from the story line if used.

I am sure that editing this film was a project of immense proportions!  I can only imagine the difficulty of piecing together the scenes to make this story line fit together perfectly.  If a regular film generates twenty to forty hours of raw footage, this must have generated twice that.  It was as if this story was actually two stories, what was happening in real time and what had happened in the immediate past.

I will watch this film again, after a few weeks of pondering and trying to piece together the story.  If that is the fate of the average viewer, the director is brilliant, selling two "tickets" per viewer!

Works Cited

Boggs, J. M., & Petrie, D. W. (2008). The Art of Watching Films (7th Edition ed.). Ashford University: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.