A Summary and Review of Memento

 Memento is an experimental independent film made by Christopher Nolan before he became famous for
rebooting the Batman franchise. Guy Pearce stars as Leonard, who has a short term memory loss, and
is trying to hunt down the man who murdered his wife. This film has two narrative lines with scenes
filmed in color which are sequenced in reverse chronological order from the ending while scenes
filmed in black and white feature Leonard tracking down the killer in proper chronological order.

 An alternate version on DVD in complete chronological order shows him tracking down the killer in a
motel room with this first half of the film in black and white withhe second half switching
to color and shows him going out into the world to find the killer. While this film did not win any
Academy Awards, it took home many awards internationally. Such as thirteen awards for Best
Screenplay and five for Best Film. Guy Pearce also won two awards for Best Actor.

 In the ten years since this film has been released, there have been no remakes, but there are
similarities between this small indie film and Nolan’s later blockbuster Inception, both films tend
to skewer and bend conventions of reality, at least in terms of a film’s narrative story. Memento in
the way it chronicles the search of a killer without the convention of even telling a story in
chronological order. While Inception deals with bending reality through dreamscapes and fantasy, and was originally planned a follow up to Memento. Yet Nolan felt he needed to tackle bigger films before doing such a feat.