Thriller

Momento is a 2000 film, directed by Christopher Nolan and written by Christopher and Jonathan Nolan. It follows a man, who suffers from short-term memory loss and uses tattoo's and notes with polaroids to help him try and find his wife's killer. This is a psycological based thriller, produced by 'I remember productions.' It grossed $25,530,884 in america in its first year of release.
Starring Guy Pearce as Leonard, Joe Pantoliano and (Matrix's) Carrie-Anne Moss, who is most famous for her role in The Matrix as Trinity.

The opening credits of Memento, run over what looks to be a male hand holding a developing polaroid image. However, the image is going from post development to pre-development and the picture is dissolving so we the audience can not see it anymore. The extreme close-up shot shows the mans hand shaking the polaroid for what normally would be a developing image but this is reversing- which gives an in-sight to how the movie is going to pan out. The audience then watches the polaroid image get sucked back into the camera. Now it is apparent we are watching a series of events that have panned out but we are watching them backwards.

The camera then follows on a tilt to what we can tell is the main character, due to his attire- a sand suit with a brown belt.

A close up of his face- we see he has been hurt or injured as he is bleeding on the left hand-side of his cheek. The editing of the camera shots allows an extreme close up of blood trickling back up the wall and then shots to a bullet which looks as though it is on the floor. Also of a pair of glasses- seperately these are all still prop focus shots. We are then presented with a close-up of which looks like a dark haired male, facing downwards in a pool of blood. Followed by a medium-long shot of the main character re-tracting a gun that flys back into his hand, as the camera follows the subject downwards- croaching towards the ground, we watch all the props (extreme close-ups) repeat but back track themselves from their end position. It then becomes apparent to the audience that the man lying face down is possibly in relation to the glasses and bullet. Inferring that our main character is his killer.

The male lying down is twisted around and slightly raised, as the glasses go onto the male and the diagetic sound of him screaming, the medium shot allows us to see there is conflict between these two characters,

Now an important feature to note is the first 1:45 is in colour and the film suddenly enters a black and white mode. Accompanied with a voice over of our main character- Leonard.

In this next scene, the non-diagetic voice over of Leonard explains how he doesn't remember being in the hotel room. (Which the camera pans around in medium-long shots, with an extreme close up to the room keys, when addressed in the voice over.)

Then a wide shot of the room, see's Guy Pearce's character talking to himself. The film tranships back to colour as a close up of a few dollars and polaroid of the man we saw he had shot at the begining, is on a desk. He asks a member of the hotel staff, at the front desk if he has seen him. The camera cross cuts between the diagetic sound, as they converse then enters the said man. It zooms with Leonard as he walks towards this male, (Teddy Gammell- played by Joe Pantoliano.)

The film develops with the conversation as the main character expresses to Teddy "I guess ive already told you about my condition", which is a clue for the audience into the reason why he may not remember certain places or people.

The plot develops as they both try to enter a car, which Teddy tries to tell Leonard is his car, Leonard carries pictures with him to remind him of important things- i.e what car belongs to him. "Oh your in a playful mood, its not good for you to make fun of somebodies handicape.", Leonard's dialogue suggests Teddy isn't a trustworthy character. The scenery suggests Pearce's character is staying in a small town that has his hotel/motel the 'Discovery Inn'. This carries some irony as the main plot involves Leonard discovering who killed his wife.
The two men enter his car and Teddy- dressed in a blue bomber-like jacket and glasses asks Leonard to put his window up. The cross-cutting explores the two talking but also the medium shot of seeing that the window is broke and theres glass on the bottom of where it should be. The dialogue progresses and seems that Teddy is trying to help him in his inquests to find the killer. However, he tries to divert our main character to travelling to a place he wished to visit but he doesn't remember why.
This is followed by a pan and zoom of the convertable car driving up towards a rural building. The scenery is rather dusty and has a parked, blue truck outside, coinsidently matching Teddy's jacket. Teddy says its been there for ages but our main character is still suspicious. The long shot turnes into the camera being a medium length shot on a dolly, as Leonard inspects the car and states the tracks are only a few days old.
The mixture of shots, follows and zooms to a cross cut of Leonard finding bullets layed out on the seats of the truck. The shots then reverse themselves as, he drops the bullets back into the truck and suggests they go inside the building.
Teddy stays behind but the camera follows Leonard as he walks into the building, it switches to the front of our character, where he enters the rural set-up which looks like a crime scene at face-value. Leonard is flicking through his poloaroids as the camera advances between two previously mentioned camera angels.
The plot hits a crucial break through in the first four minutes as one of the polaroids has an image of Teddy, illustrations on the back say 'Dont believe his lies, He is the one, Kill him'- this is all in an extreme close up as Pearce's character compliments the scene in commentry of what the audience can read.
Things get heated and Leonard pins Teddy to the floor at gun-point, through a diverse number of zooms, cross-cutting and various angles the two characters exchange heated words.