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Saturday, Nov 7, 2009
A critic dissects the most complex -- and controversial -- film of the year.
Jun 28, 2001 | As the usual string of expensive summer blockbusters unspools, with its unpredictable array of commercial triumphs ("The Mummy Returns") and disappointments ("Pearl Harbor"), it should be heartening to film fans that a classic sleeper can still find room in a marketplace filled with bloated extravaganzas nurtured by gray-suited greedheads. For a quick spiritual pick-me-up, consider this: On Monday, the per-screen average for writer/director Christopher Nolan's "Memento" -- a challenging art-house noir made for $5 million and released by a novice distributor after no other company would touch it -- was but $2 less than the per-screen average of "Pearl Harbor," a $200 million mediocrity, whose lavish, flag-wrapped premiere probably cost about the same as "Memento's" entire budget.
"Pearl Harbor" was playing on a lot more screens and making a lot more money, of course, but per-screen average is a good indicator of overall audience enthusiasm for a film. "Pearl Harbor" was also midway through its fifth rapidly declining week in release while "Memento" was still hanging in there for its 15th week. More to the point, one film represents a triumph of writing, directing and performance, while the other is a triumph of money, hype and ... and ... more money. The slight possibility that, in a few more weeks, "Memento" could be taking in more in absolute dollars (rather than per-screen dollars) than "Pearl Harbor," despite the full force of the much-vaunted Disney promotional machine, is enough to make one cackle.
Why has "Memento" held on for so long in the most competitive season of the year? For one, the word of mouth has been phenomenal. After three-something months in release, the film even entered the list of top 10 highest-grossing films last month, and it's been resting comfortably just below the top 10 ever since.
And there's no question that this is a film that encourages repeat business: That is, its puzzles are so intriguing and so impenetrable at first viewing that filmgoers are almost forced to go back for a second look if they want to figure out just what the hell was going on. "Memento" is like "The Sixth Sense" and "The Usual Suspects" in that nearly every scene takes on a different meaning once you know where the film is going.
Or should that be "where the film has been"? Unlike "The Sixth Sense" and "The Usual Suspects" -- indeed, unlike almost every other celebrated "puzzle film" in cinematic history -- "Memento's" puzzle can't be undone with a simple declarative explanatory sentence. Its riddles are tangled up in a dizzying series of ways: by an elegant but brain-knotting structure; by an exceedingly unreliable narrator through part of the film; by a postmodern self-referentiality that, unlike most empty examples of the form, thoroughly underscores the film's sobering thematic meditations on memory, knowledge and grief; and by a number of red herrings and misleading clues that seem designed either to distract the audience or to hint at a deeper, second layer of puzzle at work -- or that may, on the other the other hand, simply suggest that, in some respects, the director bit off more than he could chew.
All of the notices about the movie have told us that the story is told in reverse order. We hear that Leonard, played by Guy Pearce ("L.A. Confidential"), kills the murderer of his wife in the film's first scene, and that the film then moves backward from that point, in roughly five-minute increments, to let us see how he tracked the guy down, ending with what is, chronologically, the story's beginning.
It turns out that this is a substantial oversimplification of the movie's structure -- and that's just one of the surprises that unfolds once you look at the film closely. Some have found the film daunting, and some critics panned it. They're entitled to their opinion, but many of the negative reviews make it plain that the critics didn't quite grasp what Nolan was doing. It's heartening, however, that most critics at the country's major papers understood that the film has immense thought behind it, both technically and thematically. Still, given the way the film business works, critics usually have only one chance to see the film and have to dash out a review before deadline, so even many of the positive reviews couldn't begin to chart the film's depths.
Yet, in Web communities, critics and film fans have discussed "Memento's" structure and meaning without letup. I thought I would take the time to get to the bottom of some of its mysteries. I'm going to attempt to peel away a few layers of this prickly artichoke of a movie.
What follows is an explication for those who have seen the film -- if you haven't seen it, beware, because I'm going to discuss the plot and its revelations in detail.
