Memento

The movie Memento is truly a murder mystery in a head spinning adventure. This movie is so complicated that it is possibly necessary to watch this movie more than once.  Memento, not only had an interesting plot, but also interesting visual design, cinematography, and interesting transitions. Not only is this movie interesting, but it is also very mind blowing on how the authors were able to confuse the watchers of the movie as the main character was with his memory issues.

Within the movie, it was extremely hard for me to understand the sequence of events due to the author’s using different film stocks. They use black and white, rough grain stock, and also smooth-grain film stock for different ways to show the plot of the movie. First, the authors used the smooth-grain film stock to shows the rough chronological order of the movie. The author used rough-grain stock runs the chronological order. They also use a different grain stock when Leonard has flashbacks when he thinks of his Sammy Jankens. I believe that due to the confusing script within the movie, the film stock helps in defining the different script order and is used as a great transition to those.

Throughout Memento, the author uses low light scenarios with minimal lighting. This is especially true when they do scenes at the hotel room. There is always shadowing on Leonard’s face and long shadows from objects within these scenes. The movie appears to be shot on locations versus on a set. This is due to  the high number of different areas within the movie and also because some of the movie was shot outside. However, I could see the set with Leonard meeting up with Natalie at her residence and also Leonard’s hotel room, could have been a set.

I believe that the movie is in a subjective point of view. I think that due to the viewer’s ability to become more involved within the movie and the camera’s ability to force us to see what exactly Leonard is seeing also the subjective point of view to occur. The movie shows Leonard’s and the viewer’s intimately involved and feels the intensity with the visual experience. This movie kept the viewer extremely involved and deeply focused within the movie.

Lastly, Memento was a type of movie that I have never seen before. At the end of the movie, instead of finalizing everything for the viewer, left the viewer with numerous questions about what really happened. For me, it didn’t finalize it very well. For this reason, I went and watched the movie a second time to see the things I missed. This allowed me to understand the movie better. Ultimately, this is a movie that I liked very much and would recommend it to others.