Memory Loss

Lili’s Pick: Memento

Lanie’s Pick: Shaun the Sheep Movie

This week, our films revolved around memory loss—a concept that is, ironically, impossible to forget because it is so commonly featured within film. It’s a convenient plot device that can add elements of confusion, and potentially frustration, but it ultimately offers the opportunity to frame films in very unique, unconventional ways. Memento, a film that set the standard for twisting the narrative frame, has been on my watchlist for years, so I challenged my sister to find an equally gritty film about amnesia. Naturally, her choice was the 2015 Shaun the Sheep Movie, a film that is indeed listed beside Memento when you google “films about amnesia”, and somehow it is not the strangest-looking on the list. Amazingly, despite our love for the Aardman studio’s Wallace and Gromit films, we’d never seen an episode of Shaun the Sheep. Last night’s viewing of the Shaun the Sheep Movie proved that this must be changed immediately. How a film can be so funny, so unexpected, and so entertaining, without ANY speaking, is beyond me. And how it can all be done with meticulously designed claymation, truly blows my mind. It is one of the sweetest, most wholesome films I’ve ever seen, there were tears in my eyes throughout the entire movie because I was so invested in these sheep and their plight to save their now memory-deficient farmer who’s become lost in the big city. I got the impression that any Shaun the Sheep affair would be endlessly cute, but this film in its simple, almost Charlie Chaplin-esque comedic abilities, felt like a good place to start. And while some may say it is impossible to compare Shaun the Sheep to Memento, it should at least be pointed out that Shaun the Sheep grossed $101,850,986 upon its release, whereas Memento grossed about $40 million back in its day. Yes, Memento is a film made for troubled film bros and not children, however, it does say something about the evolution of our preferences for film, and the evolution of Christopher Nolan’s style as an auteur. Watching Memento last night made me nostalgic for a time before I had any beef with Christopher Nolan, a time when the goal wasn’t to out-do or over-sell, but to tell a compelling story. Remember when Christopher Nolan wasn’t afraid of subtlety? When the details mattered, and weren’t just fleeting landmarks on road trips to nowhere? Remember when deep bass and an over abundance of explosions weren’t the trademark of a Christopher Nolan film? Remember when Warner Bros decided to make their 2021 film releases available via HBO Max so people could watch them safely from their homes during a pandemic and Christopher Nolan then dubbed HBO the “worst streaming service”? I’m not pointing these facts out to make you hate Christopher Nolan, even though he once said: “Don’t chase your dreams, I want you to chase your reality” a statement so imbued with privilege and waspiness, it stings as I type it. While I am exhausted at the thought of giving this 34-time Oscar nominee any more recognition, it is undeniable that Christopher Nolan has made some gripping and iconic films. The Prestige and The Dark Knight, Nolan’s best films in my opinion, give the perfect balance of hype and subtlety that were staples in his earlier work. They are cleverly understated, which make their action and suspense all the more thrilling and distinct. Memento certainly falls into this distinction: with its gradual, somewhat tortuous revelations that never come easily. Guy Pearce was strikingly handsome in his Tyler Durden cosplay, at every unflattering angle and confusing point of view. I appreciated how this story, despite its missing pieces and untrustworthy protagonist, managed to make sense and remain interesting. Without giving too much away, I’ll say that its story, while sold as a tangled thriller with a nonlinear style, was pretty easy to follow. And while this shouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, it leaves Memento in a category of film that the majority of Nolan’s films fall into: one that is characterized by their ambition to blow your mind, but overshadowed by the fact that they fail to completely do so. The Prestige did blow my mind, I’ll give Christopher Nolan that, but that didn’t happen with Memento. It was much more enthralling than Inception, but it gave me the same feeling of “well… it’s not that deep” This is the part where some dude goes “well YOU try to make a movie then, YOU try telling a story out of order that is still comprehensible” and to that I say: if I had the budget Christopher Nolan has, I’d simply make another Batman movie, or another Shaun the Sheep movie, or really any movie that is invested in telling a story, and not just in blowing the minds of some film bros. All shade aside, Memento did the job it set out to do, but let the record show that Shaun the Sheep was leaps and bounds ahead. To put it as my sister did: “Shaun the Sheep could do Leonard Shelby, but Guy Pearce could not do Shaun the Sheep.”