Memento

Since I still haven’t watched Buried, I’d like to quickly throw out my opinion(’s reprint…) of Memento. It is one of the few movies that I give a 10/10 for.

Hmm, this might be a nice gimmick: starting with the Luci Official Score and then explaining why I gave it. We’ll see.

Since Memento, let’s just say, wasn’t released yesterday, I have – again – no inclination to explain the plot, or to be more precise, I’ll be writing this in a way that I assume that you, the reader, have seen the movie. This will be full of spoilers.

Frankly, I knew about Memento’s main gimmick way before I’ve watched it. Or to be more precise, I didn’t: all I knew is that the scenes are going backwards, which is not an adequate way of explaining the setup: you know, colored scenes going backwards, black-and-white expository ones going forward, meeting in the middle… However, knowing this (half) information did not derail me from the movie and I enjoyed the film just fine, there were just as many unanswered questions as if I’d have been going into it 100% blind.

I think the best part of the film was that it kept everything tight. The timing, the scenes, the locations, and most importantly, the number of important characters. Of course, on the first rewatch you’ll realize that there are a few characters that deserve greater attention then what you gave to them originally, but still, that is a much more „handlable” amount than in, for instance, Inception or even The Prestige (yes, I compare Nolan’s movies to Nolan’s movies… I hope you find that fair). To be more exact, it isn’t really the actual number of the characters is what I mean: it is the number of goals and parties. I’ll get back to that later.

Obviously, the first time you watch Memento you are supposed to be confused until the very end and you are confused until the very end. It is really rewarding to notice all the subtle signs and notes when you’re rewatching the film. The setting (the way the scenes are shown) works really well. Some people call it a „gimmick”, and to be fair, I do think that it is, and that the story on its own would not have worked had it not been for the „condition” of the protagonist. This isn’t going to be an original remark at all, but the setting really deserves the highest possible marks for audience involvement. Even though this basically forces us to sympathize with Lenny from the start, this is exactly the thing that makes the ending („middleing”) reveal so great.

Speaking a bit more of the „gimmick” thing, I wrote in my Inception review that because of the lack of time (both in the narrative and as the length of the movie itself) we could not get to sympathize with Cobb and the reveal didn’t involve Ariadne’s background, the reveal didn’t have that much of an effect on me. If we would have happened to see Cobb in the past with his wife and see the whole sad process from the start, it would have worked a lot better. The reason I brang this up is that I think that the same lack of weight would have occured in Memento’s reveal, had it not been for this „gimmick”. The only reason (and don’t get me wrong, it is a fantastic reason) we got to learn Lenny’s tragic past and (some of) the events that led up to the end of the film AFTER we know what happened (or to be more precise, what will happen) is due to the shuffled narrative. I haven’t seen the Otnemem version (it plays the scenes in chronological order) but I am sure that on its own that one would not have been a great thing. The problem would be the same as my gripe with Inception: we wouldn’t get to experience Lenny’s suffering and most importantly, we couldn’t „get into his shoes” without this „gimmick”. We would have lacked the emotional commitment and the reveal would have been meaningless. Especially due to the fact that it was in the middle of the story.

Again, I don’t think I need to go over how great the acting, the setting and everything was (I don’t have that high standards anyway so I am not the most prominent person when it comes to deciding whether or not the camera work or the acting were good – I can say a lot more about the story), but I do have one thing to say about the soundtrack: unlike most of the movies I’ve seen in a long while, Memento’s soundtrack really was ambient. It didn’t stick out like a sore thumb, it never took over the scenes themselves, it was always a supportive element, even during the chase scene. And best of all, even the chase scene wasn’t about the adrenaline rush and the visuals: it fit into the plot. It was all about our protagonist and the situation. It wasn’t self-indulgent To give an admittedly bad example, I think we could have lived without the freeway scene of Matrix 2.

When it comes to Memento’s characters, I’d like to introduce a concept that I like to call „the chain of will”. Again, I have to call back to Inception: Arthur’s almost every action was driven by the fact that he worked with Cobb who wanted to do the inception because was hired by Saito who wanted this because given reasons… it is kinda hard to relate when we reach this state when the character does something because a related character did something because a related character did something. Not impossible, mind you, it wasn’t too difficult in Inception, either, but it can be in the way of the enjoyment of the film.

In Memento, we have nothing of that. As I’ve said before, we don’t have too many established characters, and what’s even more important, these few people all have well established individual goals and reasons for those goals. They are all understandable and none of them are running vessels nor „chainwilled”. Except for the protagonist himself, but the fact that we don’t know this 1) makes this no problem 2) will turn out to be the reveal in the end. Probably that is one of my main reasons that I love Memento: it is contained in a relatively small environment and it is really pushing its limits of it.

Basically all we have are Lenny, Teddy, Natalie. That is all. And that is all we need. These three characters with well-defined goals, motives, actions (if only after the second viewing) are more than enough: in fact, all three of them manipulate the protagonist one way or another, and all of them do so with very good reasons. And we relate to all of them, one way or another. Mind you, this is not the way we relate to, for instance, Eames in Inception: this is much deeper than that. More is not necessarily better, and I loved this minimalism of Memento’s casting: it added a lot of the story – the fact that it only had a few really important characters, but they were really important.

I am not going to talk much about the plot itself other than the few notes I made above because I really cannot say anything new. I loved it, but I consider the „shaken” narrative necessary to make it work. I was really involved emotionally. What I’d like to talk about is the suspension of disbelief. Why, you might ask? Because this is – in my opinion – the single greatest thing a writer or director can achieve. No stories are without plotholes. You could rip anything apart if you’d like to do so (part of my long-planned review series (The Reverse Reviewer) would feature a lot of this when it would come to good movies). I think the best possible thing is when you can get your audience in a state where they don’t want to drill down the plotholes. The main thing is if you, as a viewer, want to suspend your disbelief or not - is the story exciting and/or entertaining and/or emotionally involving enough to make you (not) do so? That is the main question in my humble opinion.

In Memento’s case, just to give an obvious example, how come a man that tells EVERYONE about his condition wasn't put back into a hospital since the obviously long time he roams freely? It would be understandable if the facade of the film would be real, but it isn't and we have to accept that this guy conducted multiple killings and told dozens and dozens of people about his condition and no one ever called any medical dudes. But you see the point? You just don't WANT to propose these questions, and that is the most that I consider achievable by any work of fiction.

I think the only reason we don’t ask these questions is the high level of emotional involvement in the tragic story of an amnesiac husband who gets deceived by everyone on his hopeless quest of trying to make things right („some way, somehow, I’ll know [that I’ve done it]”). Sammy Jankins’s introduction in the timeframe of the movie was really well done, and taking this and the reveal I am positively sure that the story wouldn’t work without the excellent timing. But as it is, it is stellar.

Having deeply involving characters and a fantastically clever „gimmick” in a nice minimalistic environment wrapped up beautifully with a real great story and good acting, Memento is one of my favourite movies and one of those that I dare to give a ten out of ten.

Inception

(update - picked off a link)

To say that I gave Inception the benefit of the doubt would be a huge understatement: I was expecting to get blown away by sheer genius awesomesauce. After finding The Prestige a really crafty, neat movie and Memento a masterpiece in its own right (and hearing all sorts of good things about the Batman movies), plus seeing how high reviews and what a fantastic reception Inception got, I sat down watching it with really high hopes.

And I am not a snob when it comes to movies, mind you! Most of my film experiences involve the mainstream movies broadcasted a few years ago (which would basically translate to an 11 year old watching Tango and Cash and alike), so not really a Fellini-filled, hardly graspable something. Now of course, given these movies and my age, some of you’ll probably just say „duuuh, you just don’t get it”. Well, I am not sure if I am going to be able to prove in a few paragraph that I am a highly intellectual person, but I’ll try.

Considering the fact, that I jumped really late on the bandwagon of Inception-watchers, I think it is unnecessary to explain the plot or even the basic setting of the film, those of you who are reading this probably know the whole thing by now. I am also going to stray away from the normal reviewing formula by stating my LOS (Luci Official Score) for Inception in advance before giving my reasons: 7/10.

Now, even judging by the major online movie sites, this would not be a low rating, but it is when we’re looking at the reviews this movie got. I don’t say either that Inception was a bad movie, by no means! I think I wouldn’t give The Prestige a higher rating, either, maybe half a point more, and that wouldn’t be because I find that film better, it would be because of my problems with Inception.

I wouldn’t even call them problems, in fact, these are just… things. Minor gripes. Whatever.

Let’s get an important compliment out of the way soon: everything that was not story-related was stellar in my opinion. From the direction to the sets, from the soundtrack (I have a sweet spot for Hans Zimmer anyway due to Broken Arrow, which is a movie I have a major nostalgic love for) to the acting, there was not a problem whatsoever in my opinion (I’ll get back to the acting later). The story is, as it is, a really ingenious thing as well… but I’d rather say stories here, and this is my major problem with this thing. Not that I’d have any problem with either of the stories (e.g. the inception plan and Cobb’s personal story), it’s just that despite the movie being over 2 and a half hours long, they couldn’t fit together, and by the difference in nature of the two stories, it was impossible for them to seamlessly blend together anyway.

Let’s start with Plot 1 – the inception thing. This is the one I have a serious gripe with, and I am really sad that I have that, because I really wanted to love this story. So we have it established that this thing is impossible, okay, just „impossible”, okay, just really goddamn difficult. We get to learn the basic ways of dream architecture, the ways of the extracting. We establish rules and a really clear system about this thing, and we find some loopholes in order to be able to do the inception – and none of that feels arbitrary! It is all awesome! We’ve got a really interesting situation with really great characters and acting performances, and we’re all ready to go! Let’s try to do this really, really hard thing!

…

Now comes the problem. The characters begin their attempt. The inception is already a really difficult, almost not accomplishable feat. And despite that, the movie starts to stack up the odds even more. Which is okay, and to a point, necessary, but after a while, we do reach the usual Hollywoodian state of „nah, they cannot fail”. Not this plot thread, that is.

I’ve mentioned something like that in my review of the FreeSpace campaign "Homesick" as well, stating that the art of modern storytelling really needs more story endings like Homesick’s, which is a bad ending. We cannot care about the main characters and their goals if we know that by the nature of the plot, they cannot fail – or at least cannot fail yet (particularly because the other plot is yet to be finished or even fully explored).

What do I mean when I say that the movie stacks the odds up? Well, first it turns out that the mind of the heir is trained against that sort of thing. Not mentioning the usual complaint of „where the hell do they get weapons from”, this would be the thing that I could accept, understand and find fitting and integral to a plot. This one, I can. The fact that the heroes then deal with a whole army of soldiers in the third dream level, I can’t. Remember how much of a panic it caused when it turned out that there are mere gunmen around in the dream? Guess they pose a much greater threat than soldiers.

But it isn’t just that. Apart the constantly raising stakes/implausibilty of the stronger and stronger brain-defenses, we have the constant disturbances of Codd’s state of mind as well. I really had to suspend my disbelief about the idea that no one has noticed these things before about him, about the stuff that happens when he is in a dream, his reasons that he cannot see the layouts (I think that would have been easy to figure out for, hmm, Arthur?), about his „experiments” – seriously, no one ever asked him what he found out during those? Wasn’t he ever, ever confronted about this thing? Hasn’t a big-ass train ever arrived before during an extraction? Never? It never popped up before?

So apart from the fact that the original plan itself was really difficult to carry out, add thatabout half a dozen „inceptors” manage to successfully evade/combat such a strong and competent force in the third dream level (which was, again, something I really could not take seriously, especially when all we’ve had was Eames accompanied by the injured Saito who only had a gun and a grenade against a whole army!), AND they had to deal with – in one form or another - the constant disturbances caused by Codd. Despite all these, which made the awesome action scenes basically tensionless (you know, the Conservation Of Ninjutsu), the characters manage to carry out a plot that was goddamn difficult to start with and continued with the odds stacked higher than the Mount Friggin Everest.

But you know what? I understand the presence of Mal in this whole thing: she was necessary to advance Plot 2. On their own, I am sure that both Plot 1 and Plot 2 would have made into a fantastic movie, and I think that the only reason that their combination didn’t work for me was the fact that we lacked time.

Not that the characters ever were in a hurry or something. Eames is like three dream levels in, the clocks are ticking madly, but he just walks. That was another thing that really threw me off: I am sure that „real people” in these situations would be frantic as hell and would hurry more than as if a hornet nest would charge towards their ass, but here – apart from the action scenes – everyone had sooo much time. Okay, not sooo much but still too much for my personal taste. It really threw me off track and by disbelief sensors started to tingle maniacally.

So Plot 1 goes off without a hitch, and since we’ve had Plot 2 next to it, the characters were pretty much destined to go through with their plan despite anything that came their way. As for Plot 2, the „Mal-saga”, I have one thing to say:

CUT ME A BREAK FROM THE FRIGGIN EXPOSITION!

It is either Ariadne or Cobb who fills the huge gaps of Plot 2 after every scene that is related to it. I have no problem with that in general, hell, all the black-and-white scenes in Memento were basically nothing but exposition, but here, it always followed the formula of [Ariadne experiences something related to Cobb]-[she or Cobb gives a long explanation as to what is behind that]. The fact that it’s usually Ariadne who does that was what made me think about the fact that Arthur really should have figured out at least part of this whole thing by now. Again, don’t get me wrong, I personally considered Ellen Page’s character and act to be the top of this parade (this probably has something to do with the fact that it is probably a bit easier for me to relate to a twenty-something year old female that is clever as hell and has more than enough in the looks department as well than to DiCaprio), but this issue was clearly due to the lack of time. Of course, this wasn’t nearly as bad as in, say, the Star Wars prequels, but it was a bit annoying here. Not because of the fact that we’ve had exposition – but because we’ve followed this same formula at least five times during the film! The last time being the supposed big reveal at the end of the film!

Now I’ve said „supposed”, but this is a subjective thing: personally I wasn’t that much engaged in Cobb’s internal things (this is NOT due to the fact that he is, in fact, not a female, I reject the accusation; Leonard Shelby wasn’t female either), or to rephrase that, I was, but I didn’t care about Cobb himself, I did not sympathize with Cobb. Mainly because I didn’t get to experience his suffering, I didn’t get to experience his loss, only at the end of the film and even then it was only partially so! Unlike Memento, where narratively the same thing happens but due to the reverse nature of the film I do get to learn Lenny’s tragic past in time to be really involved emotionally in the ending (or to be more precise, „middleing”). And again, by that point I cared more about Ariadne’s welfare. And I don’t get carried away by female characters only due to the fact that they are female.

By the ending of the film, it seems as if the inception was the „rim” of the Mal-saga, and the latter was the „main” thing. However, due to the fact that it was almost impossible (and sadly, Nolan failed to accomplish the impossible) to seamlessly blend these two plots, and I could swear that the first had more „screen time”, I could not care about that one that much. Again, it was a really good and interesting plot as well, but it would have needed more time in my opinion, or even better, a separate movie. As it was, even the ending didn’t matter to me that much, because Plot 2 was something that we didn’t get to see from the start, we’ve jumped in in medias res and we didn’t even get to see the end of it due to the fact that we can’t be sure if the last scene was a dream or not.

I was actually expecting some sort of a twist in the narrative though, like a scene turning out to be a dream that we thought that it isn’t. Yes, we had those, but none of them were integral to Plot 1 or 2 nor to their alleged facade which we would’ve probably had if we would be talking about a twist now. But apart from the very end – which wasn’t a twist either, just a big question mark or, depending on who you ask, a giant FOOK YOU (I support the former, mind you) – the narrative of the inception and the „Mal-saga” is untoppled.

All in all, I really liked this movie, please do not forget that. In an array of sky-high expectations it is a movie that deviates from the Hollywood norm and I do believe that we need even more and more of such thinkers’ films, but in my opinion Inception didn’t go far enough. Maybe due to the top-rate predecessors as Memento, The Prestige or the Batman films, but Inception isn’t a leap above the earlier accomplishments of Nolan as the above examples are for me.

You know what I would have done? I would have made two movies. The first would have featured an excellent cast of characters ranging from DiCapro to Page and Levitt, and would have been about the extractors carrying out various assignments, and in the end, doing the seemingly impossible: the inception. I would have named that movie Inception.

The second would have been about a genius who figures out these ways of controlled dreaming, who tragically gets stuck in this loop, manages to get out but loses his wife in a sad process. Later he meets a young, promising talent called Ariadne and introduces her to the secret art. As time progresses, the eager and curious young girl figures out more and more of this sad story and in the end necessitates Cobb to face his inner demons, and in the end the viewers would learn about the fact that Mal’s death was, in fact, due to Cobb’s inception. In the end Cobb gets home but we can never be sure if the top topples or not, leaving a whole generation of film-goers with an exciting topic to chew about.

I would have called this movie… hm… Inception.