20 years of the Memento
On September 5, 2000, Christopher Nolan's film "Memento" premiered at the Venice International Film Festival as part of an out-of-competition screening.
In my opinion, this film is, first of all, an example of the touching brotherly concern of Christopher Nolan. And that's why. As you know, two years earlier, Christopher Nolan shot his first full-length feature film "Following". The production of the film cost only 6 thousand dollars, although it enjoyed considerable success. Such a small "cost" of the picture was explained, among other things, by the fact that Christopher Nolan's relatives and friends, who worked for free, were involved in its creation. Including Christopher's younger brother, Jonathan, who was officially listed as an assistant operator.
The statement that "Following" was a huge success can be proved by the fact that Christopher Nolan was able to raise a budget of $ 9 million for his next project. (Imagine the jump: from 6,000 to 9 million!) And this next project was the film "Memento". The official version - the film is based on the story "Memento mori" by Jonathan Nolan. But! Before the release of the movie "Memento" this story was not published anywhere. Moreover, "Memento" was nominated for only one Golden Globe nomination - Best Original Screenplay. And Christopher Nolan himself was nominated. A little later, the film "Memento" received two Oscar nominations, including, again in the category of Best Original Screenplay. And here two nominees have already been determined - Christopher and Jonathan Nolans.
In other words, we can say that Christopher "put into orbit" his younger brother Jonathan. Since then, Jonathan has been the constant co-writer of almost all of Christopher's forthcoming films. But, in fairness, it should be noted that so far only a co-author and scripts for films only by Christopher Nolan. (As usual, we only talk about full-length feature films. We abstract from television production.)
But back from Jonathan to the movie "Memento". The film has received a total of 57 film awards and 58 nominations. But the overwhelming majority of this recognition was received only in the United States and not at the most prestigious film forums. Of the prizes received by the Nolans film outside the United States, the most prestigious is the British Independent Film Award. Although in this case, probably, one cannot discount such a factor as the British origin of the Nolan brothers.
As for the assessment of the film by film critics, most of them gave a very positive assessment, although there are many very sharply negative reviews. Moreover, almost all positive reviews almost unanimously declare the main advantage of the film is a very not-ordinary, and therefore very unfamiliar, showing of events in reverse chronological order. And all the negative reviews condemn the film for the logical contradictions it contains.
Roger Ebert begins his review of the film with a quote from a letter from one of his correspondents: "Although I loved the film, I don't understand one key plot-point. If the last thing the main character remembers is his wife dying, then how does he remember that he has short-term memory loss?" And immediately gives the answer to this question: "Perhaps a neurologist can provide a medical answer, but I prefer to believe that Leonard, the hero of the film, ... suffers from a condition brought on by a screenplay that finds it necessary, and it's unkind of us to inquire too deeply....I've seen it twice. The first time, I thought I'd need a second viewing to understand everything. The second time, I found that greater understanding helped on the plot level, but didn't enrich the viewing experience. Once is right for this movie. Confusion is the state we are intended to be in."
Another famous American film critic, James Berardinelli, who rated the film to the maximum with 4 stars, opposes Ebert in his review: "There's no way this film could miss....This is a great motion picture, and, as an added bonus, it has a tremendous "replayability", meaning that subsequent viewings are almost as rewarding as the first."
An interesting characterization of the film by Christopher Nolan was given by the famous Russian film critic Nina Tsyrkun: “So, the hero's unconsciousness and the childish lapidarity of the comic, in the setting of which he appears, give the film an intonation of infantilism, on the one hand, and on the other, lyricism that departs from the epic sequence of the “normal” text, where time flows smoothly and linearly, and events follow each other, even if they occur simultaneously, but at different points."
And viewers all over the world appreciated the film "Memento", as is the case with almost all of Christopher Nolan's films, much higher than many film critics and representatives of the cinematic community did. This is evidenced, firstly, by the film's financial indicators, and, secondly, by the ratings given by viewers on the IMDB and Kinopoisk websites. With a budget of $ 9 million, as mentioned above, it's total gross was nearly $ 40 million. 78% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave the film ratings from 8 to 10.
With that said, Christopher Nolan's film "Memento" according to FilmGourmand was rated 8.577, which allowed it to take 288th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
