Memento (film)

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Movie
German title Memento
Original title Memento
Memento.svg
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2000
length 109 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Christopher Nolan
script Christopher Nolan
production Suzanne Todd ,
Jennifer Todd
music David Julyan
camera Wally Pfister
cut Dody thorn
occupation
synchronization

Memento is a crime film from the year 2000 by director Christopher Nolan , based on the short story "Memento mori" by his brother Jonathan . The most distinctive feature of the complex film are the two storylines, one of which runs in the correct sequence (scenes in black and white) and one in the opposite chronological (color) sequence of the scenes. The main character Leonard, played by Guy Pearce , is attacked by a burglar in his home and loses the ability to form new memories after a traumatic event. Memento was released in the UK , other parts of Europe and Canada in 2000 . In the USA and Germany , the film was only released in 2001.

action

Note: Due to the mixing of chronologically backwards and forwards connected (linear) scenes, the chain of events in the film deviates from the one shown here. The differences are marked.

The film starts with a color scene in which you see Leonard shooting Teddy and then taking a photo of the corpse. When Leonard shakes the fully developed Polaroid in his hand, it slowly dissolves into blank photo paper (at the beginning of the credits you can see a Polaroid depicting a man who was shot in the head) because of this particular scene runs backwards.

The film then jumps to the chronological beginning of the story - a black and white scene in which Leonard wakes up in a motel and has a phone call with an unknown caller. Leonard tells the caller the story of Sammy Jankis. Sammy suffered from anterograde amnesia , which prevented him from having any new memories. At the time, Leonard was an insurance fraud investigator whose job it was to find out if Sammy's condition was a result of physical injury and was therefore covered by his insurance. After several tests, Leonard concluded that Sammy's condition was psychological; his insurance claim was then rejected. Sammy's wife, a diabetic and convinced that Sammy could be “shocked” out of his condition by a strong enough cause, got him to give her insulin injections several times . She died after he unknowingly gave her a fatal overdose, and Sammy was admitted to a mental hospital.

Leonard also tells the caller how his own wife died. One night two men broke into his home and raped and murdered his wife. Leonard shot an intruder, but was then knocked down from behind by the second man. His head injury gave him anterograde amnesia - his last memory is the sight of his dying wife on the bathroom floor. Leonard is determined to find the second burglar and avenge the death of his wife. He developed a system of Polaroids , notes on himself and tattoos of important facts to make up for his lack of short-term memory. One of the few clues to the identity of the second intruder is a tattoo with the name "John G.". The mysterious caller tells Leonard that the murderer, a drug dealer, is in an abandoned building. Leonard drives to the old building and kills a man named Jimmy Grants. At this point in the film, the black and white scene becomes the last (but chronologically first) color scene.

A few minutes later, Teddy arrives and Leonard finds out that he has been used. Jimmy Grants was just a local drug dealer and had nothing to do with the murder of Leonard's wife. In the actual climax of the film, Teddy reveals to Leonard that his wife survived the attack and only later died of an overdose of insulin - administered by Leonard. According to Teddy, Sammy Jankis was an unmarried cheater. Leonard insists that Teddy is lying, but is unsure. Teddy claims to be a police officer who, out of pity, helped Leonard find and kill the real John G. more than a year earlier. But Leonard forgot that he had his revenge and started looking for John G. again. Teddy also admits that he manipulated Leonard into killing Jimmy for the $ 200,000 he had in his car, half of which Leonard is said to get.

After Leonard realizes that Teddy is using him as a murder machine, he prepares to kill Teddy. He notes his license plate and writes a note to have this information tattooed on him. Leonard takes Jimmy's clothes and car, leaves Teddy and drives to a tattoo shop (the final scene of the film). There Leonard finds a note from Jimmy's girlfriend, Natalie, in his pocket. Since he's already forgotten he's wearing Jimmy Grant's clothes, he thinks the note is meant for him. He drives to the bar where she works, meets with her and tells her about his condition. Natalie offers to help him, but later cheats on him and leads him to threaten a man named Dodd, who molested Natalie over the money from Jimmy's drug deals. After some trouble, Leonard forces Dodd to leave town. When Natalie learns that Dodd is gone, she has Leonard's license plate checked for his tattoo. She gives him a copy of the driver's license, and Leonard compares the copy to his photo of Teddy, whose real name is John Edward Gammell - "John G.". Leonard concludes from this that Teddy is the rapist and murderer of his wife. He takes Teddy to the abandoned building where he murdered Jimmy Grant a few days ago and (as shown in the first scene) shoots him. Leonard takes a photo of the body.

Special stylistic means

The film follows two narrative strands: On the one hand, the actual story of the film is told. So that the viewer, like the protagonist Leonard Shelby, can experience the feeling of not remembering for himself, the colored scenes run backwards chronologically. You are permanently in an action without knowing its previous history, which makes it difficult to organize what you have seen and to relate it. On the other hand, events are shown immediately before this action. The associated scenes are black and white, run forward chronologically and are distributed throughout the film.

Building the narrative structure in Christopher Nolan's film Memento

The narrative structure is shown graphically in the sketch opposite. The rotating arrow symbolizes the chronological plot, the numbers and letters the two narrative threads in the film.

synchronization

The German synchronization of the film took over the Film & TV sync GmbH in Berlin for a dialogue book and the dialogue director Beate Klöckner.

role actor Voice actor
Leonard Shelby Guy Pearce Philipp Moog
Natalie Carrie-Anne Moss Anke Reitzenstein
John Edward "Teddy" Gammell Joe Pantoliano Ulrich Frank
Sammy Jankis Stephen Tobolowsky Ivar Combrinck
Catherine Shelby Jorja Fox Silvia Seidel
Burt Mark Boone Junior Ekkehardt Belle
Jimmy Grants Larry Holden Oliver Mink
Dodd Callum Keith Rennie Ole Pfennig
Mrs. Jankis Harriet Sansom Harris Inge Solbrig
doctor Thomas Lennon Niko Macoulis

Reviews

"Formally unusual, extremely bold thriller, which drives its story from end to beginning in order to let the viewer take part in the hero's disorientation and thereby touches on existential questions."

“Memento is an existentialist, experimental film noir , a cross between B-movie and conceptual art, a dramaturgical adventure about time and memory, illusion and identity, a fast-paced work that rushes along in the smallest of spaces and gets around very far - and that too in reverse. "

- Merten Worthmann : The time

"Of course, 'Memento' is not seriously a deep reflection on space and time and identity and memory, but rather an elegant thought game that consciously remains on the surface of the phenomena."

- Urs Jenny : The mirror

Special offers

Some DVD releases allow the film to be viewed in its chronological order of events. To do this, you have to press the right button on the system remote control of the DVD player twice in the main menu of the DVD , whereupon the interactive menu item Memento appears in the lower right image section . Clicking on this menu item starts the film in chronological order. This chronological order is achieved by first showing all black and white scenes in the order they appear in the film. This is followed by all colored scenes from the last shown in the film backwards to the first scene.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Memento. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing index , accessed on January 19, 2020 .
  2. ^ Memento. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. Merten Worthmann: I am who I was. But who was i? In: The time . No. 51, 2001 (December 13, 2001, online ).
  4. Urs Jenny: Somersault backwards . In: Der Spiegel . No. 50 , 2001, p. 202 ( Online - Dec. 10, 2001 ).