Make up post Memento and the real *contains spoilers

Memento, the 2000 film directed by Christopher Nolan offers us a good look at what the real truly is. This film is very confusing to audiences watching it for the first time because it is narrated backwards, and jumps around from the beginning of the story, to the end. After doing some reading about the way this film was made, I now understand that this idea of having two timelines while can be confusing, makes an audience key in on certain things they would not normally see. If you pay attention to what Leonard (Guy Pearce) is saying in the black and white sequences you will eventually have a better understanding of what is happening in the color sequences. This film makes the audience think about realism, and what the real is? We believe that the real is exactly what happens in front of our eyes (what we see). The film makes us think about how there are things much more “real” beyond what we can see or comprehend. Leonard believes he is living in the real, where he is trying to find the murderer of his wife with the help of his cop friend (Teddy). However, due to his condition where he forgets things shortly after they happen Leonard has to take Polaroid pictures to help him remember what certain objects and people mean to him. Leonard lives in a world where he does not know who he can trust. Due to Leonard’s condition, his peers are able to manipulate him into doing things that would benefit themselves. A more recent film that offers a look at “the real” is 2010 Shutter Island. This film gives us another character that seems to be in his normal real world, but as the film goes on we learn lots of different things about what reality to this character (DiCaprio) really is. Another film that deals with the notion of the real is American Psycho, starring Christian Bale. This film shows us a New York stockbroker by day (who attended Rollins Business School) and a crazed murderer by night. Throughout this movie we find that things are never really how they seem to be. We make up a reality in our mind, which is always going to be slightly different from the actual reality… If you are looking for a good film about the real, the first place you should looks is the thriller/action category. Some examples other than the ones I just wrote about are The Matrix, The Sixth Sense, and The Village.