‘Memento’ a momentous flick

I once read about an experiment in which witnesses of crimes were asked to identify a perpetrator in a lineup. In one group of witnesses, when the criminal was chosen, the cop said to the witness, “There’s our man.” The other group didn’t have this encouragement. After the lineup, the witnesses were asked if they were sure they picked the right guy — though none of them were actually criminals — and the former group invariably responded with more certainty. The point? Their memories were distorted by outside sources and by themselves. Memory is the foundation for a large part of our identities and personalities, and yet it is highly unreliable and easily influenced. This fact is at the heart of “Memento,” the feature debut of British-born writer/director Christopher Nolan.

“Memento” is basically a film noir/thriller with modern sensibilities — done backward. The film starts off with a memorable scene, as we see a man being killed in reverse motion. We soon discover that the one doing the killing is Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce, “L.A. Confidential”), a former insurance claims investigator with an interesting disability: he’s unable to form new memories. His wife (Jorja Fox, “C.S.I.”) was raped and murdered and in the attack he sustained an injury that destroyed his short-term memory. As a result, he cannot keep memories in his head long enough to absorb them permanently. The last thing he remembers, he says, is his wife dying.

The impetus for the plot is pretty standard: Shelby wants to track down and kill the man who murdered his wife and took away his life. The inability to remember anything that happened more than a few minutes ago complicates things, of course. So, to aid him in organizing his life and gathering clues, Shelby relies on a series of notes, Polaroids, and tattoos with relevant information on them.

Pretty cool. But Nolan, who based his script on a short story by his brother Jonathan, takes this intriguing premise a step further. The plot itself is actually shown to us backward, so that we see the last scene first and the first scene last, each one ending where the previous one began. These scenes are interspersed with a second thread, taking place at an unknown point in the story and gradually playing out until both parts of the plot intertwine. While this approach sounds gimmicky and potentially confusing, it works surprisingly well. According to costar Joe Pantoliano, Nolan started writing the story in traditional linear fashion, but decided that it would make the movie too conventional.

“[Nolan] felt that the audience would have it too easy and they’d get ahead of it and figure it out too soon,” Pantoliano said in a recent interview. “So he told it backward to force the audience to see this story told through Leonard’s eyes.” The result is just that, as each new layer of the plot reveals itself, we realize that we’re about as clueless as Shelby is about what’s really going on, and just as anxious to find out. None of the people he meets are whom they appear to be, and none of the events seem to add up until the ending.

Among those “helping” Shelby is Teddy (Pantoliano, “The Matrix”), a weaselly little man who always seems to be around to offer advice, although a Polaroid tells Shelby to distrust him. Joining Pantoliano in the supporting cast is fellow “Matrix” alum Carrie-Anne Moss as Natalie, a woman who tries to help Shelby but may have more mysterious motives. In the second thread, we also hear the story of Sammy Jankis (Stephen Tobolowsky, “Groundhog Day”), a man with a similar condition who Shelby investigated before “the incident.” For each of these supporting characters, it can be said that our perception (and Shelby’s) of their identity and significance changes drasticall, and often as the film progresses. Because of this, leaving your seat during the film probably would not be a good idea.

“The most important thing about seeing this movie is to make sure you go to the bathroom first and get your soda and popcorn,” Pantoliano advised.

To tell more of the plot would take away from the fun of piecing it together as it goes, and I could hardly do it justice on paper anyway. “Memento” has to be seen to be appreciated, because Nolan has created one of those rare pictures that is consistently surprising and engrossing for its entire running time. Between the tour de force editing by Dody Dorn and Pearce’s intense performance, Nolan is able to keep the tension level high for all 116 minutes. Furthermore, as Pantoliano contests, the innovative nature of the plot demands that it be seen again.

“It’s Chris Nolan’s intention to have an interactive ending,” he said. “I saw it for the third time and I got something I never got from it before.”

All told, “Memento” is the biggest mind-screw since “Fight Club.” Only it achieves this by building up to a logical conclusion, instead of employing cinematic artifice like “The Usual Suspects” or succumbing to predictability like “The Sixth Sense.” Pantoliano is understandably enthusiastic about the reception “Memento” is going to receive from college audiences.

“College kids are going to love this movie,” he said. “They’re going to want to dissect it, they’re going to want to see it again.”

I can attest to this. On the way home from the theater, a friend and I could only talk about what we had just seen, or rather what we thought we had just seen.

At one point in the movie, Natalie asks Shelby what good revenge would be if he could not remember it anyway. Shelby says things will be different after he gets revenge, but he does not seem too sure of himself. In a lot of ways, though, Natalie’s question sums up “Memento”’s existential conundrum: if memory is not certain, then what is? Well, for one, “Memento” will probably find a spot on my Top 10 list at the end of the year. Barring memory loss, of course.