I watched Memento (Latin for "remember") last night and this afternoon. It's messed up my mind. It's a guy who only has short term memory since his wife's death. He pursues her murderer by way of tatoos, notes, and polaroid pictures he takes of things and writes on.
The movie ingeniously gets you into his perspective by starting from the end and gradually moving backwards. You see a scene, then you see the scene before that scene, until you reach certain aha moments.
But it's messed my mind up. I just wrote some notes to myself on a chapter of the philosophy book I'm writing, knowing that I'll forget it if I don't put it there now. My psyche is disjointed enough already... it's why I blog so much... little snapshots of my psyche for as long as I can hold attention... But who am I--what's the glue that holds these moments together, that constitutes any of us as a whole person?
Oh well, maybe I'm just having some sort of psychotic break. No biggie... it happens.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I remember seeing that in college. Fun movie.
But the problem with the movie, from a business perspective, is the impossibility of seeing it a second time--when you know the whole story you can no longer have the main character's perspective again, which is the real point of the movie. That is, unless you forget....
Have you seen "Run Lola Run?" It doesn't function the same as "Memento," but it's another one of those movies that extends beyond the typical Hollywood format (this film happens to be a German film, thus you can only find it with English subtitles). "Run Lola Run" sort of plays with the butterfly effect, only cinematically, and much better than movies like "The Butterfly Effect."
It'll mess with your mind too!
I loved Memento. That movie really messes with your head.
Have you read James K. A. Smith's chapter on Derrida in "Who's Afraid of Postmodernism"? He uses Memento to illustrate "There is nothing outside the text".
Bryan L
"Identity" was also a film about perspective. The perspective was from a person with MPD (multiple personality disorder), who had 10 personalities. No one realizes that the perspective of the characters in the film was of each one of his personalities. It had a fabulous ending, very unexpected...
Memento was memorable.
Post a Comment