On Sat, 2 Mar 2002, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> The secret of the protagonist's amnesia and compulsion to murder is
> the forgetting of misogyny inherent in men's sexual control over
> women (the "protector" sliding into the executioner). A theme
> (always implicit in film noir, often explicit in neo-film noir) whose
> revelation, in more capable hands, could be as devastating (to the
> protagonist and the audience alike) as the revelation of capitalism
> and patriarchy in _Chinatown_. As it happens, though, _Memento_
> makes the revelation forgettable, overwhelmed by its narrative
> device, rather than having the narrative device integral to the
> revelation. It's ironic that a film about amnesia makes its audience
> amnesiac, because the film forgets its own theme.
> --
> Yoshie
umm...I thought that was the point of the film: it forgets itself. Or am I attributing intent to an error? "Hey, I meant to do that!" On one level, it doesn't matter, because the conceit worked, at least for me.
Miles