Memento

Memento is one of those rare gems that is clever and entertaining. Leonard, the protagonist, wakes up in a motel room not remembering how he got there. He looks in the mirror and sees the many tattoos on his body which inform him that his wife was raped and killed and he is on a hunt for the killer. Other tattoos and a copious amount of Polaroid photos and notes with him remind him of the clues he has accumulated on this chase. Leonard was afflicted with short term memory loss after his wife’s murder, he can remember everything upto her death, but he cannot form any new memories. So, he takes photos and keeps notes of everything. Is Leonard being used as a puppet by someone who is aware of his condition?

Memento fascinates the viewer from the very beginning with its unique non-linear sequence. Imagine the story as a thread with a beginning and an end. The movie is composed of alternate scenes, one progressing forward from the beginning and the other backwards from the end. The big surprising reveal comes in the climax when these tracks meet in the middle. The Nolan brothers deserve an Oscar for their screenplay which successfully pulls off this intricate feat, intriguing the viewer in every scene, but never losing him. Guy Pearce brings the Leonard character to life with razor-like focus to his acting. Director Christopher Nolan concludes the movie offering one possible meaning to the story, but he leaves enough threads open so that Memento will be a fertile source of discussions with your buddies. The concept of Memento has been used in Hindi and Tamil movies, both named Ghajini, but sadly they stripped the story of all its intelligence. Memento is a witty little movie that demands to be watched. Do not forget to check it out!

Inception

Rating: 3/4 (Minus the needless action and complexity, Inception is the stuff dreams are made of!)

Christopher Nolan returns after The Dark Knight to the much darker, deeper domain of the mind in Inception. The hero Cobb (Leonard di Caprio), a dream thief, is given his life’s mission when he is asked to plant an idea in the mind of Fischer, heir to a business empire. In true Hollywood fashion, Cobb assembles a team which includes his employer (Ken Watanabe), an architect, a point man, a forger, and a chemist. These diverse roles are needed for the Nolan vision of a dream heist. Ariadne (Ellen Page), the architect, builds the worlds of the dreams. The dreamer will dream the dream and the rest of the team and the victim will join it. The forger will shift his identity, taking on different characters in the dream. Cobb, the extractor, will steal or implant information in the dream of the victim. Cobb, who had only stolen from dreams up to this point is required to try inception, planting an idea in the victim for the first time. To achieve this he creates 3 levels of dreams, a dream within a dream within a dream. Only with such deception can the victim’s mind be fooled into accepting a foreign idea. It sounds complicated, but thanks to Nolan’s vision, the team achieve it. Things go south, when the demons of Cobb’s past return in his dream and he enters limbo, a dream of no return.

The concept of Inception is extremely interesting and Nolan pulls it off pretty well. He borrows generously from movies like The Matrix, Dark City, The Thirteenth Floor and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The dream worlds of Paris folding over, the dilapidated Limbo Land and the zero gravity Hotel are fantastic to experience! In contrast, the City Streets and Ice World look useless and seemed to serve only as arenas to throw in some mindless shooting and action. Nolan extracts great acting chops from Leonardo di Caprio, who is getting awesomer with every movie. Ellen Page, Ken Watanabe and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are memorable, but Michael Caine is wasted with his tiny role. The movie gets a bit hard to understand with so many levels of dreams. It is one or two too many, since Nolan could have told a clearer, more focused story with less. The ending is perfect, in the sense that the audience is left wondering if Cobb is still stuck in a dream or it happened for real. Despite its mindless action and unnecessary complexity, Inception is still the most interesting movie this year.

The Prestige

[ Trailer ]

Two Victorian age magicians steal each others’ tricks and try to outdo each other in the movie The Prestige. Directed by Christopher Nolan, the story is based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Priest. Two friendly magicians Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Borden (Christian Bale) have a falling out after Borden pushes a trick too far and kills Angier’s wife. Angier hires a beautiful assistant named Olivia (Scarlett Johansson) and starts working on some new tricks. Meanwhile, Borden surprises the magic world with a new trick named The Transported Man where he teleports himself across the stage. Angier drives himself crazy trying to understand how Borden is doing this trick. Finally, Angier manages to force Borden to reveal his secret: Tesla. Realizing that Nikola Tesla has built a teleportation device for Borden, Angier travels to the USA and funds Tesla to build such a machine for him. After many failed attempts, Tesla manages to deliver such a machine, but it has a disconcertingly dark side effect which will eventually trouble Angier. Using the machine Angier manages to earn back his fame and send Borden to jail. But, the real secret behind Borden’s The Transported Man trick (no, he wasn’t teleporting) comes back to haunt Angier.

Coming from the director of Memento, a non-linear narration is to be expected in The Prestige. With his flashbacks and flashforwards, Nolan manages to bring interest into the story. He is joined in this venture by Christian Bale and Michael Caine, both of whom acted in his last movie Batman Begins. Bale and Jackman give spirited performances as the 2 main protagonists. Scarlett is um eye-catching. David Bowie gives a (literally) electrifying performance in his brief appearance as the electrical pioneer Nikola Tesla. There are several scenes involving Tesla coils which look uber cool. The famous Tesla-Edison rivalry also makes an appearance. The movie has many neat twists and gotchas. Yet, the big letdown is the story itself, which ends up running out of magic.