Post by George Willson on Feb 1, 2006 18:21:05 GMT -5
I man has a condition in which he has no short term memory and as a result, can make no new memories. However, he is trying to track down the man who raped and killed his wife, so he uses notes, tattoos, and photographs to guide his life.
On the surface, this is a really cool movie. In order for the audience to get the feeling of having to start where you are and go from there, the bulk of the movie is played in reverse. We start with the final scenes and then the one before that, and the one before that, etc. Each time there is a shift, we go to the very beginning of this story (in black and white to easily differentiate them) and get some exposition about his condition and what he's doing. Often this exposition plays into what happened or is happening in the backwards story. It's a trippy little effect and really does help with the feeling of disorientation that someone with this condition must experience.
The beginning and end culminate in a heck of a zinger at the end that I, frankly, never saw coming. They had set up the whole plot from one angle, and then pulled the rug out, but it made sense...sort of.
Now for the problems...the DVD I watched had an option to play the movie in "chronological order" meaning it shuffled all the tracks on the DVD to play it in what would be beginning to end. Not only does this show the story in a whole different light (that is equally interesting), but it also brings to light all the little problems you miss watching it as normal since your mind has trouble wrapping around the disorientation.
First, for no short term memory, this guy remembers stuff remarkably well. They do make an attempt to explain this by conditioning, and perhaps that's what he's done, but he always seems to know too much about what's going on, but always not quite enough to allow him to see through what people are doing to him.
There were two people who apparently knew Leonard before the story began, but it never explains how they knew him or even why this guy was singled out by the cop for Leonard's purpose (I say it this way to avoid spoilers). That one point really frustrated me more than anything else. I can get past the memory thing with an easy enough explanation, but this seems to be an important piece of exposition and it was not there.
Overall, this was a really good film and made for a good thriller. The technique employed to help the audience get a piece of Leonard's "condition" was supreme. But that missing bit of exposition was just annoying.
On the surface, this is a really cool movie. In order for the audience to get the feeling of having to start where you are and go from there, the bulk of the movie is played in reverse. We start with the final scenes and then the one before that, and the one before that, etc. Each time there is a shift, we go to the very beginning of this story (in black and white to easily differentiate them) and get some exposition about his condition and what he's doing. Often this exposition plays into what happened or is happening in the backwards story. It's a trippy little effect and really does help with the feeling of disorientation that someone with this condition must experience.
The beginning and end culminate in a heck of a zinger at the end that I, frankly, never saw coming. They had set up the whole plot from one angle, and then pulled the rug out, but it made sense...sort of.
Now for the problems...the DVD I watched had an option to play the movie in "chronological order" meaning it shuffled all the tracks on the DVD to play it in what would be beginning to end. Not only does this show the story in a whole different light (that is equally interesting), but it also brings to light all the little problems you miss watching it as normal since your mind has trouble wrapping around the disorientation.
First, for no short term memory, this guy remembers stuff remarkably well. They do make an attempt to explain this by conditioning, and perhaps that's what he's done, but he always seems to know too much about what's going on, but always not quite enough to allow him to see through what people are doing to him.
There were two people who apparently knew Leonard before the story began, but it never explains how they knew him or even why this guy was singled out by the cop for Leonard's purpose (I say it this way to avoid spoilers). That one point really frustrated me more than anything else. I can get past the memory thing with an easy enough explanation, but this seems to be an important piece of exposition and it was not there.
Overall, this was a really good film and made for a good thriller. The technique employed to help the audience get a piece of Leonard's "condition" was supreme. But that missing bit of exposition was just annoying.