Can this movie be solved?

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That's the title of an intriguing article in the Boston Sunday Globe which can no longer be accessed, so here's the text.

Can this movie be solved
You've finally-figured out 'Memento.' Next challenge: 10 other puzzling films
By Larry Worth, Globe Correspondent, 6/24/2001
Apparently it's human nature to make little pieces fit into a big picture.
Example A: Almost a century has passed since jigsaws geared toward adults hit the market, evolving over the decades from trendy diversion to standard pastime. And their popularity endures.
And Example B? Cinematic puzzles that lure any moviegoer who has a desire to be challenged. The most recent proof is the ongoing success of ''Memento,'' a celluloid jigsaw if there ever was one. Viewers are hooked; the low-budget indie has grossed more than $17 million after 15 weeks, making it the most successful nonstudio release of the year.
For those who have yet to jump on the bandwagon, here's the opening setup: 30-something amnesiac Guy Pearce kills another man and snaps a photo of the victim. From there, writer-director Christopher Nolan lets the story work backward, scene by painstaking scene.
Viewers know only that the hero is trying to discover who murdered his wife and then attacked him. Complicating matters, the hero has been unable to retain new information since the tragedy. That's why he travels with a Polaroid camera, photographing everyone he talks to.
As the narrative continues in reverse, characters are cast in new light, odd little twists seamlessly blend into the goings-on, and the puzzle that is ''Memento'' finally fits together. Voila. For the price of admission, and a good workout of the old cerebellum, viewers can play armchair sleuth.
While there's never been anything quite like ''Memento,'' the puzzle movie has long been a cinematic staple, both in Hollywood and abroad. Some feature fractured timelines; others continually alter the viewer's perception of an event. The genre is all about the viewer's ability to collaborate with the narrative, then sort and reconstruct the elements.
Something all these movies share, however, is the reward of a second viewing - which video and DVD make ever more possible. If the writer and director have succeeded, one finds renewed pleasure in watching the scenario with a different perspective.
Repeat theatrical viewings helped turn ''The Sixth Sense'' (1999) into a box-office phenomenon. M. Night Shyamalan's Oscar-nominated thriller about a haunted little boy (Haley Joel Osment) also had great word of mouth, never mind its ''I see dead people'' ad campaign.
Granted, much of the talk had to do with the film's surprise revelation. But millions wanted to go back and see exactly how ghostly Bruce Willis had appeared to be conversing with wife Olivia Williams and worried mom of the little boy Toni Collette. And that's not even mentioning the flash-a-second scenes of Willis trying to open a closet door or the seemingly unimportant explanations of psychological trauma.
Psychological trauma plays a role in many puzzle movies, particularly in a landmark brainteaser from Akira Kurosawa. ''Rashomon,'' 1950's Oscar-winning foreign film, was a startling tale about four people who take part in or observe a rape and murder. Each relates a differing account of who did what to whom in ninth-century Kyoto. It becomes increasingly clear that no one can be completely trusted. But behind that concept is a far weightier one: What is truth, and can we ever find its essence? It's a puzzle worthy of Plato.
The most common type of puzzle movie is the thriller. Mysteries lend themselves to labyrinthine twists, as epitomized in Ira Levin's ''Deathtrap,'' the 1982 film version of his Broadway play, directed by Sidney Lumet. The setup involves a once-thriving playwright (Michael Caine) who suffers from writer's block. He invites a young student (Christopher Reeve) to his isolated cottage, ostensibly to work on the protege's promising script. With the older scribe's hysterical wife (Dyan Cannon) and a nosy psychic (Irene Worth) observing, the stage is set for murder.
But whose? Virtually no one is who they seem, and the viewer spends most of the film going back to square one.
Nine years before ''Deathtrap,'' Cannon starred in one of the all-time-great puzzle movies, ''The Last of Sheila'' (1973). The ingenious script, by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins, places seven Hollywood types on a yacht in the French Riviera for a week of parlor games.
The boat's owner (James Coburn) has invited six guests (Cannon, Richard Benjamin, James Mason, Joan Hackett, Raquel Welch, and Ian McShane) who were present when his wife, Sheila, was killed a year before. The septet engages in games within games within games, culminating in some pretty gruesome demises. Even the title isn't straightforward; it has three different meanings. Director Herbert Ross simply never lets up.
But if there's any director who's due the title of cinematic puzzle king, it's Nicolas Roeg. As evidenced by ''The Man Who Fell to Earth,'' ''Performance,'' and ''Bad Timing,'' he's made a career of jump cuts and narratives that ignore chronological order. Roeg's masterpiece is 1973's ''Don't Look Now,'' adapted from Daphne du Maurier's short story of grief-stricken parents (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) trying to get over the death of their little girl via a trip to Venice.
The hunt for a serial killer in Venice's decaying environs is intercut with the couple's past, future, and very terrifying present. This one isn't for those who want to sit back and be entertained, but the payoff justifies the mental workout.
A film similar in technique to ''Memento'' is 1983's ''Betrayal,'' directed by David Jones and written by Harold Pinter. It opens with the resolution of a lover's triangle, with Ben Kingsley, Patricia Hodges, and Jeremy Irons as the entangled husband, wife, and best friend. Ninety-five minutes later, the film ends when the wife first considers adultery.
The viewer experiences the emotional resonance of knowing how each moment of joy is going to sour, while working to assimilate the backward movement, which sometimes encompasses a two- or three-year gap. The technique offers insight into love's vagaries - and a constant challenge.
Yet another tale of fractured romance is Stanley Donen's ''Two for the Road.'' Way ahead of its time in 1967, the film charts the giddy highs and soul-threatening lows of Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn as they fall in and out of love over several decades. Donen helped define the puzzle genre as he let stream of consciousness flow between a half-dozen stages in the couple's tumultuous union. Their courtship, marriage, and dissolution come into focus oh so gradually, leaving their ultimate fate anyone's guess.
Then there's the dream puzzle. This subgenre has manifested itself in many guises, often as part of a plot about garbled memories or the mentally challenged. Both themes show up in Robert Altman's 1977 gem ''3 Women.'' It starts out in a straightforward manner, with mousy Sissy Spacek tolerating the condescension of her roommate, would-be socialite Shelley Duvall - all as mute, pregnant Janice Rule looks on from a rundown California motel.
A dramatic event then results in a personality transfer. Logic takes a back seat to the surreal, with Altman's bizarre clues forcing filmgoers to piece the story together.
One wonders if all the pieces even exist in ''The Magus'' (1968), the film version of John Fowles's bewildering novel of the same name. The film is set on a nearly deserted Greek isle, where a magician (Anthony Quinn) observes the arrival of mysterious Michael Caine, who's instantly smitten with Candice Bergen and Anna Karina. But, in a classic illusion vs. reality battle, Caine questions how many of his visions are real. He's trying to navigate a virtual maze, as are audience members. It's undeniably confusing, which may be what caused the film to bomb at the box office. Yet director Guy Green earned a cult following for making fun and frustration coalesce amid eye-popping visuals.
A more recent obscurity is ''Urbania'' (2000), directed by newcomer Jon Shear. The perplexing plot features a young man (Dan Futterman) tracking down a guy he met in a bar. One assumes he's trying to rekindle a sexual tryst. Not the case. Along the way he meets a slew of oddball characters (Alan Cumming, Josh Hamilton, Matt Keeslar, Barbara Sukowa) and hears and tells some disturbing urban myths. These myths come into play when one finally realizes the nature of the hero's mission and what's truly going on.
It's a great little puzzle movie, chock-full of the requisite enigmas, menace, and revelations. Yet audiences ignored it - a puzzle as intriguing as any in the genre.

This story ran on page L9 of the Boston Globe on 6/24/2001.
Â© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.

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Kimber Kable

Topic - Can this movie be solved? - clarkjohnsen 12:46:17 06/25/01 (1)

Clark: Thanks for posting this... - Harmonia 01:32:45 06/28/01 (0)

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