Memento- the film
"Does the world disappear when we close our eyes? Does it?"
The film is about memories and the transience of our existence and false beliefs and real beliefs and human relationships and trust and the future and the past and our reasons for living. It is about existentialism. It is both a story told backwards and forward. What would it matter if you could not distinguish one day from another? Another quote from the film:
"What do you care, you won't remember tomorrow anyway."
The beauty of the film is in its rich textures-the switching back between color, black and white and sharp flashbulb bright glare that moves in between shots. Nothing is fade to black. It is also beautiful in the way it shows in painful detail how frightening it would be to wake every day not knowing how you got there and what happened the day before. And the day before that.
The movie feels like a hangover; a drug induced stupor. You can't trust your eyes and you learn that what the characters remember may not be real memories. They are only a version of the truth they are trying to recall. If we question the reality of our memory, if we don't trust the memories of others where is the ground, what are we walking on?
When you watch Memento you have that walking on a glass sidewalk feeling. You know you won't fall to the ground below-hundreds of feet below you. But you don't dare look down. This is one film that will stay with you, or at least your memory of it will.