Review Detail

9.8 9 10
mementoparallel_front
FanMix April 17, 2021 4487
Overall rating
 
10.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
I watched a preview version of this edit ahead of its final release and was very impressed with it. Memento is the first film I saw by Christopher Nolan, and it remains a good demonstration of his taste and knack for formally playing with the flow of time as part of his storytelling technique.

This edit does a fantastic job of presenting what the film might have looked like if Nolan had opted for a different structure, and crucially works seamlessly in its own right. The structural changes, which have been executed invisibly by INH5 as far as I can tell, change the viewing experience in an interesting way. The original structure effectively puts the viewer in Leonard's shoes, by constantly wrong-footing us and presenting new situations with no context and forcing us to work out not only what's happening, but also what repercussions or implications each new discovery might have. It's very clever, but it can be exhausting to keep up with and there is an element of having to trade clarity of narrative throughline for cleverness.

INH5's new structure instead puts the viewer into the shoes of people that Leonard interacts with, but crucially also works as a literal illustration of the cyclical pattern that Leonard has been trapped in since his accident. Not having to constantly re-assess what you know at each scene transition also makes it easier to engage with the characters, and in the case of one character completely changes how the viewer observes that character, to my mind for the better.

A great example of a fanmix done well, in my opinion.
T
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