Free Essay

Memento Review

In:

Submitted By eko1991
Words 647
Pages 3
In the history of film there has never been a movie quite like Memento. Some people may simply see an average, but confusing film here. But you must dig deeper, and you must go beyond Memento’s surface to see the pure genius. Once you see the genius of Memento I want you to keep digging deeper to discover one of the most inventive modern masterpieces of today. This is one of those films in which it will often be imitated, but will never be duplicated. When is the last time you saw a film that challenges everything you know, but only to have it all stripped away in the end? Director Chris Nolan takes away everything you thought you knew of the traditional sense of film, and supplies you with a completely new fresh take on things.

Memento is all about Leonard aka Lenny (played by Guy Pearce). Leonard suffers from short-term memory loss. His memory loss is so frequent he can never remember anything he has just learned. Add this to the fact he is searching for his wife’s killer, and you have a recipe for something unsettling. The story is so deeply layered, and intertwined, you must pay full attention, because every moment you will discover something new. Add to the facts, every scene of the movie is played in reverse chronological order. Imagine your favorite movie, and now imagine seeing the last 10 minutes 1st, then after the last 10 minutes is played you’re taken back to see the events 10 minutes before it. This cycle keeps repeating throughout the whole entire movie. What fun is it to give away the ending in the beginning? Oh, lots! Because Memento takes away what you think you may have known, but shows things are not what you once thought.

As I mentioned before, Leonard has short-term memory loss. While confronting the people who broke into his home, Leonard was knocked in the head by his attackers. In return the bump created this condition of memory loss. The same attackers who broke into his home also raped and murdered his wife that same day. Leonard suffered the bump in attempt to salvage her. The whole plot is about revenge, and Leonard’s search for closure not just for himself, but for his wife as well.

How will Leonard complete his goal of revenge if he cannot remember? Over the course of the movie Leonard is seen with many types of notes for memorization. Keep in mind his last memory is of his wife dying. He has tattoos all over his body reminding him of his goal. You see “find him and kill him” across his chest. Other tattoos show some of the clues he has discovered in who he believes is his wife’s killer. Leonard also carries notes, and pictures of people with notes attached. The most frequent face besides Leonard’s face is Teddy’s. At the very start of the movie we see Teddy die. Over the course of the movie we start to see how Leonard grew suspicious of Teddy, and we see all the evidence leading up to why Leonard killed Teddy in the beginning of the movie.

When Leonard first appears, you see him in a business suit, with fresh scratch marks on his face. You never realize all the tattoos, and memory loss hidden below. Director Chris Nolan does a great job in slowly revealing the many layers he has put on to the character. An example, we see a picture of Teddy shortly before he is killed. Under the picture there is a note saying “Teddy is the one, don’t believe his lies.” As time moves backwards, the movie moves forward, and we start to see why these notes were added. We start to discover the evidence Leonard has against Teddy, and how maybe Teddy isn’t the one after all.

Similar Documents

Free Essay

Memento Mori Review

...Week 2 Assignment LTRE – 422 Devry University Kaixuan Chen 7/21/12 Professor B Cameron MacKenzie In Memento Mori by Nathan Nolan, at the beginning of the story, the protagonist wakes up in a mental hospital with little known information about him , other than that his wife is dead and he is diagnosed with Amnesia and can not remember anything past 10 minutes, remarking himself as the “ten-minute man”. He leaves numbers of notes and pictures around the room to remind him that the daily activities such as brushing his teeth, also often reminding him that he went to his wife’s funeral and that his brain has been damaged. Earl is also the first person narrator within the short story; the notes are him philosophically explaining what happened with his condition and how his memory is so fresh that he can never forget his wife’s rape and murder. These series of notes later during the story become more motivational and congratulatory. Nathan Nolan also shows an interesting way of Earl’s character development alternating between the both first person and third person perspective of how Earl looks at himself and his “backwards amnesia”. The writer leads the reader to go into his position of having amnesia and creating a sense of us having his short term memory loss. His physical body consists of tattoos of information, instructions, and a sketch of a man’s face which we assume is murderer of Earl’s wife. One tattoo has the words...

Words: 426 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Best Of Me

...Making this the strongest lesson to viewers starting from the beginning to the end. The scene where you find Dawson in Jail is a great example of how anyone can go after revenge, but it does not make it right. The price for seeking vengeance turns out bad no matter who you are. Ultimately, the film holds several valuable life lessons in my opinion, which sets it apart from many Hollywood love stories. It shows that love and life are very similar in the aspect of unpredictability, hardships, and happiness. It also shows that bad things happen to good people even in one slight moment of weakness. The lessons along with the flashback time settings are the main reason I am recommending any adult or young teen to see this film. If my overall review itself wasn't convincing enough then you should know the ending of this movie is not like any I have seen. It will hopefully be an eye-opener to a topic that is rarely thought of by numerous people but is vital to the lives of countless individuals. ...

Words: 673 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Memento

...and starts believing that he was chasing Dodd. I liked it because of the humor which was build into the situation. The part that I didn’t like was the ending of the film which turns the protagonist into a murderer and the antagonist of the film. This because as an audience I felt connected with the lead character but when suddenly his pursuit ended at himself and that he was guilty of killing his wife and creating fake stories of Sammy Jankis to protect himself made me as an audience felt cheated by a character whose shoes I was walking in for past 2 hours. This also somewhere breaks the trust with which the audience was following the lead character. Answer 2 Memento as a film had many underlying messages and themes of human psychology and behaviors. Some key themes and their underlying message that Memento covered were memory, perception, revenge, self deception and grief. The first take of film was on the theme of memory....

Words: 1599 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Who Is The Protagonist In Memento

...In the movie Memento the protagonist, Lenny, has one major goal that he is trying to accomplish, find the killer of his wife. There are a few things that stand in his way. For starters he has short term memory lost and this slows him down because every five minutes he forgets whatever he was just doing, thinking, or saying. In the movie Natalie takes advantage of Lenny countless times for her own reasons. She gets the idea in his head that some men are the killer when they probably are not. She just wants them dead because of issues she has with them. One scene she starts screaming and insulting Lenny to the point where he hits her. Then she walks out of the room and comes back in the time it takes Lenny to forget what just happened, which...

Words: 1373 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

Exploration Proposal

...The conceptual possibilities I have chosen to explore is the decaying of animal- the life cycle, particularly human skulls with The Day of the Dead as my inspiration. I have never really explored the theme of a human skull but I have always been highly fascinated with the shape of the skull. I will use the Day of the Dead to understand a different way of looking at death and I will most likely interpret ‘Memento Mori’ into my work this means in Latin ‘Remember you will die’. Popular belief says the phrase originated in ancient Rome: as a Roman general was parading through the streets during a victory triumph, standing behind him was his slave, tasked with reminding the general that, although at his peak today, tomorrow he could fall, or — more likely — be brought down. The servant is thought to have conveyed this with the warning, "Memento mori". I want to know what the skull means to people and even interpret that into my artwork. I want to show the beauty within the skull or even the horror. Using The Day of the Dead interpretation I don’t believe I will stick to the traditional colours and patterns, I want to interpret flowers and other little bits and pieces. My priority focus throughout my design process will be the human skull, but I will be looking into the traditional patterns and colours on the skull. For my mediums I will include etching, grey led, fine liner, paper layering, possibly sculptures, charcoal and pastels. I hope to explore each in minor detail otherwise...

Words: 491 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Compliance Review

...Compliance Program / Annual Procedure Review Rule 206(4)-7 of the Investment Advisers Act creates a fiduciary responsibility for investment advisers to review annually their policies and procedures to determine their adequacy and the effectiveness of their implementation. As part of this review, all policies, procedures and responsibilities of an adviser must be reviewed, and the findings documented. The review should consider all factors that might suggest a need to revise the policies and procedures including any compliance matters that occurred during the year, any changes in the adviser’s or its affiliates business activities, or changes to applicable regulations. Reviews should be conducted by independent individuals (e.g., the department manager) not immediately responsible for implementation of a particular procedure. An overall review and approval of the adviser’s policies and procedures should be completed by the Chief Compliance Officer and should be submitted to the adviser’s Management Committee or Executive Officers for Final Action. |Procedure | |Summary & |Recommended |Reviewer & | |Completion Date & | |Reviewed |Findings |Conclusions |Change/Update |Date of Review |Review by CCO |Final Actions ...

Words: 276 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Craig Anderson Heat And Violence

...The goals of a literature review are to provide the reader with a critical analysis of scientific literature about a specific topic or question. Writing a summary about other works can demonstrate the depth of familiarity of a chosen topic. In order to further one's understanding, or research, studying the works of others is important because multiple disciplines may have competing explanations for a given subject. Literature review is also structured in a particular style that creates a uniform way for writers to articulate their ideas in a fashion the reader is familiar with. Craig Anderson uses the APA guidelines to create a clear structure for his review studying the effects of heat and violence. The structure of a literature review typically follows a certain format and order. In Anderson's, review Heat and Violence, he starts this process with a title that describes what the article is about. Following the title of the paper is an abstract, or overview, of what the entire article is about. Because there are a number of...

Words: 740 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Working on It

...Riverside Casino and Golf Resort / Stacy Benson Topic Title Performance Reviews NO. This title won’t work. What about performance reviews? If you were doing a simple research paper you could write about performance reviews based on research alone. In this Sr Paper you must determine the state of the art based on your Literature Review. Then you will give the background of the problem and discuss it. This must all lead to two Courses of Action (COAs; solutions) that are tied to your title and problem. You need a “product” such as a process, a plan, a strategy, a program – something that can be recommended and implemented. Problem Statement (if not finalized post a draft – focus on the "pain.") The problem is that after initial training employees are not being reviewed for current performance. Suggest that after this initial statement you add something more about the problem. Brief Topic Overview The casino is experiencing a high turnover rate of employees because after their initial training they are put on the floor without any further review. In the handbook employees are supposed to have a review after 90 days but they are not being implemented. This leaves the casino with under qualified employees that eventually terminate their employment due to not feeling able to meet the high demands. The solution to this problem, if it is the problem, is simple. Just IMPLEMENT PERFORMANCE REVIEWS. You can see...

Words: 640 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Mkt 420 Week 2 Individual Assignment

...Peer Evaluation for MKT 420 Your Name: KYRIA AHO Fill in the blanks for each team member (but not yourself) as if you were writing an evaluation or recommendation for that person. ONLY ONE TEAM MEMBER MAY BE RECOMMENDED FOR PROMOTION. Consider if you were assigned to another team, which team member you would want to be your boss. Consider who you’d like to work with again. Consider who you’d go to extremes to avoid working with if you had a say. Here is the format for peer evaluations. Include the team member’s full name (1), and be specific about (2) what the team member did or did not do. At the end, if you were employed with this person, (3) would you recommend (a) Promoting, (b) Retaining (Keep in position), (c) Retaining with counseling to improve performance or (d) firing/replacing. Please keep in mind that in most business situations, only one person in a group would likely be promoted. Thus a recommendation to promote would be reserved for the truly exceptional team member Team Member 1: LEXA CREAMER As a team member with Lexa Creamer on the team marketing plan project, I feel qualified to speak about his/her job performance. Lexa’s contribution to the project was timely and significant. She accepts correction easily and is always willing to assist in any way that she can. I believe Lexa’s strengths are enthusiasm and timely submission of her work. I believe her weakness is the lack of flexibility. Lexa had to miss some of the meetings due to time conflicts...

Words: 669 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Argument

...Why did we choose that particular topic or article to be reviewed? As for this assignment, our group has all agreed to choose the article titled ‘Stress Management’ as the article that we need to review. Why we chose this article is absolutely because it is easy to be reviewed. This article has much points and ideas in it. Besides, we chose this article because it is exactly and definitely related to our life as university students. So, we can easily put some ideas as our experiences to review this article. This article teaches us much about stress; what stress actually is and what do make us stressed. This article also gives us knowledge about some stress-management techniques as to overcome this particular problem. As students, we cannot run away from this problem, and we need to face it throughout our whole life as a human. Not only students, all human beings will face any kind of stress either teachers, farmers and also ministers. This article also tells us that stress is not always bad, but sometimes stress can be beneficial to us when it makes our work better and done energetically. We deeply think about how we will think to review this article so we will not face too much obstacle in order to finish this group assignment. Making notes on the article read The five articles that we choose is only about two pages each and these articles have many points and ideas to be taken and used. We need to take notes on these articles to determine which article is the best to be...

Words: 645 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Engl 135 Entire Course

...com/product/engl-135-entire-course/ Contact us at: SUPPORT@ACTIVITYMODE.COM ENGL 135 ENTIRE COURSE 1. ENGL 135 Week 1-7 All Discussion Questions 2. ENGL 135 Week 1 – Restaurant Evaluation 3. ENGL 135 Week 2 – Omnivore’s Dilemma Book Review 4. ENGL 135 Week 3 – Position Paper 5. ENGL 135 Week 4 – Research Proposal 6. ENGL 135 Week 5 – Annotated Bibliography 7. ENGL 135 Week 6 – Research Paper Draft ENGL 135 ENTIRE COURSE To purchase this visit following link: http://www.activitymode.com/product/engl-135-entire-course/ Contact us at: SUPPORT@ACTIVITYMODE.COM ENGL 135 ENTIRE COURSE 1. ENGL 135 Week 1-7 All Discussion Questions 2. ENGL 135 Week 1 – Restaurant Evaluation 3. ENGL 135 Week 2 – Omnivore’s Dilemma Book Review 4. ENGL 135 Week 3 – Position Paper 5. ENGL 135 Week 4 – Research Proposal 6. ENGL 135 Week 5 – Annotated Bibliography 7. ENGL 135 Week 6 – Research Paper Draft ENGL 135 ENTIRE COURSE To purchase this visit following link: http://www.activitymode.com/product/engl-135-entire-course/ Contact us at: SUPPORT@ACTIVITYMODE.COM ENGL 135 ENTIRE COURSE 1. ENGL 135 Week 1-7 All Discussion Questions 2. ENGL 135 Week 1 – Restaurant Evaluation 3. ENGL 135 Week 2 – Omnivore’s Dilemma Book Review 4. ENGL 135 Week 3 – Position Paper 5. ENGL 135 Week 4 – Research Proposal 6. ENGL 135 Week 5 – Annotated Bibliography 7. ENGL 135 Week 6 – Research Paper Draft ENGL 135 ENTIRE COURSE To purchase this visit following link: http://www...

Words: 498 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Maxon Technologies Case Summary

... Maxon Technologies Sales Letter Subject: Connect with this top line solution; enjoy leverage in your business while creating a classy experience in your operations. Hello, Maxon Technologies have been at the forefront of supplying Corrosion Retardant Solution across the board for various industries since the inception of the business. We help to give our customers the lift they need to recover the worn out metal surfaces of their machinery and equipment without any need for disassembling. This product is based on many seasons of research and it has been creating huge wins in the market for many years. In view of the high positive feedback it has enjoyed, we are excited to share this great information with you. Maxon CRS makes the surfaces of machines more wear-resistant. It protects metals from rust and saves you the huge maintenance costs that could be associated with this. This means that you can track your recurring expenses and redirect your resources to other exciting profit centers of your business. This is a huge win for those who understand how to navigate the tides of contemporary business. Statistics indicate that about two to four percent of most country’s GDP has been lost through the incessant wearing out of mechanical parts. This is estimated to cost about 1 557 Billion USD per year. Maxon Technologies takes your business out of this negative cycle as it is a robust component for the savvy business owner. It is important to mention that our product is easy to...

Words: 522 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Professional Review Activity Analysis

...A professional review body is any entity or governing body of a health entity which conducts professional review activity. This includes the committees of the medical staff assisting the governing body. Professional review activity is activity of a healthcare entity with regard to the evaluation of a provider with recaged to privileges, membership and scope of practice. This would typically be performed on initially application for privilege of review every 2 years by the medical staff. This could also further include on going peer review process with regard to patient outcomes or complaints. Professional review action is action that is taken as the result of the professional review activity. Professional review activity is reportable...

Words: 326 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Hardware Websites

...technology discussion forum . It provides its readers with detailed specs for thousands of computer hardware products, reviews, expert analysis and comparisons. Take the Asus X99 Rampage V Extreme motherboard for example, it belongs to a well know product line known as the Republic of Gamers (ROG). Overclock3D takes this motherboard and breaks it down piece by piece, they go into details of each aspect of this motherboard, from new features that was not available in previous Rampage motherboard models, to over clocking options, and even enhance their review with videos, screen shots, and bench testing results to verify motherboards' specs and capabilities. For the computer enthusiast, this website with an easy to navigate layout, and attractive format, brings all the new hardware to one place, and provides a tremendous amount of information regarding computer hardware. Additionally, the site has several tools that gives its readers the opportunity to discuss, ask questions, and expand on hardware uses through comments, forum, frequently asked questions and other threads in the Community section. Overclock3D was initially dependant on users input through the forum platform. Their enthusiasm however turned into a full scale professional publication, the website became a registered company in the UK and expanded its operations into other websites as well. Reviews done to hardware such as the Rampage V are now handled by professionals like Tom Logan their Director and Chief Editor...

Words: 308 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Butterfly Affect

...Butterfly leaked just 24 hours before its official release date, March 15, and that most major music websites published their reviews of the album within three days of the leak. On such an immediate deadline for filing a feature-length album review, it’s nearly impossible for a young critic to stunt. At Jezebel, Clover Hope just wrote the truth. With bits of personal and political context interspersed, Hope framed her review as a first-take impression of the “overwhelming blackness” of an album about funk and self-destruction. “This initial feeling is suffocating,” Hope wrote. “It’s the essence of Dis Tew Much.” I think most fans and critics would agree that Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly is, indeed, overwhelming. I reviewed To Pimp a Butterfly in about 72 hours. In that narrow band of time, I "got" the album's messages and themes but couldn’t grasp the motivations for the album’s sound. Why, in. You’ll recall that To Pimp a Butterfly leaked just 24 hours before its official release date, March 15, and that most major music websites published their reviews of the album within three days of the leak. On such an immediate deadline for filing a feature-length album review, it’s nearly impossible for a young critic to stunt. At Jezebel, Clover Hope just wrote the truth. With bits of personal and political context interspersed, Hope framed her review as a first-take impression of the “overwhelming blackness” of an album about funk and self-destruction. “This initial feeling...

Words: 332 - Pages: 2