50 First Kills

Michael Kera

A story told in reverse and forward all at the same time is brilliant! The colored storyline is told backward and the black and white story line is told forward until the ending where they merge together. Speaking for myself, once the Polaroid picture faded and the blood ran up, I realized we were dealing with a guy with a mental disorder. So as the movie progressed, but time regressed in a sense, the reason became clear. I like how the movie was a series of events and causes. Either the script was brilliant or the editor was, or even a combination of the two. Every colored scene is an effect and cause all at once. The pattern I saw is a bit difficult to explain because the opening scene is in reverse, and all the other scenes are played forward, but placed backwards. I will explain the pattern backwards and then as if the movie was being played forward. Some of the causes and effects are the same thing, because a cause causes an effect which in return creates another cause. Effect (Guy is shot dead) -> Cause (Lenny finds a photo in his pocket saying to kill the guy), Effect (Teddy meets Lenny at the hotel) -> Cause/Effect (Lenny writes kill him on Teddy’s photo) -> Cause (Copy of a driver’s license for a John G. who is Teddy/ (Answer to earlier Cause)Teddy says he will be over), Cause (He receives a folder at dinner), Cause (He’s in bathroom). Forward Cause (He goes to the bathroom), Cause/Effect (He receives a folder he left at his table) -> Effect (He finds a driver’s license and calls the number) Cause (Teddy says he will be right over) -> Effect (Lenny writes to kill Teddy) -> Effect (Teddy comes over) -> Cause (Goes to abandoned place) -> Effect (Lenny finds his note to himself) -> Cause (Teddy gets shot). I really hope that made sense. The way this was styled leaves the viewer wondering what caused the incident we just saw.

Following the characters was easy because there were few and we saw them in roughly five minute bursts. Each character was clearly defined. As we start seeing pieces of the puzzle each character’s motives come to the surface. “Teddy” takes advantage of Leonard on several occasions, we just know not to trust his lies, but we don’t know why. Natalie seems innocent because she helps Leonard, but later she is revealed to be a manipulative b!tch.

The way it was written and edited together was amazing. I was not pulled out of the story once. We knew the narrator was Leonard because he lives his life in his head and that’s where we were: The Forgotten Memories, the black and white story and reverse storytelling is what he already forgot. Personally I felt it worked for this story because it would be boring for us as a viewer to watch this man’s life as it keeps progressing forward, as he forgets. It’s more effective if we don’t know, like he does. In the beginning we are at the drug location, and at the end of the movie we end back up there. Really if the story was told chronologically the abandoned house would have been in the middle and ending, but I felt a sense of closure because of the way the movie was pieced together. It brought the story full circle, begin and end in the same location. By the end we find out the whole story.