The element of time in cinema is mercurial, forever changing to keep the audience within the narrative’s grasp. At the turn of this century Christopher Nolan (accompanied by his brother Jonathan) released Memento (2002), a story about a seemingly normal man who suffers from memory loss searching for his late wife’s murderer. The catch? the movie moves back in time instead of forward cleverly using a b/w backstory setting as transitions between each scene. This treatment of time, by the conclusion of the movie, generates a time loop. One realises that for Leonard Shelby (Guy Pierce) time is no object because his brain processes the here and now differently due to inability to ‘make new memories’. Not only is he stuck in this time loop but so is the audience. As a result this cyclical time zone that Leonard lives in can begin and end whenever and wherever because in the end we are going to return to square one.

In Irréversible (2002) directed by Gaspar Noé time is treated similarly in that it moves backwards. Noé makes use of a constantly moving camera and intricate long takes to follow Marcus (Vincent Cassel) and his current girl-friend’s ex- lover (Albert Dupontel) to find her rapist. (The girlfriend is played by Monica Bellucci) The brutal murder is the beginning in a terrifyingly fetishistic gay club, The Rectum, sets a jarring tone with respect to the end/beginning’s serene quality. Not to mention the infrasound track laid on the first 20 or so minutes of the film which creates a hieghtened sense of disgust in the receiver to the extent that half the audience walked out of the it’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival!

While Memento and Irréversible treat time similarly they apply other narrative elements in very different ways. Momento creates a narrative where the viewer is given pieces of a puzzle and must assemble the story themselves. Irrevérsible on the other like an older brother punches you in the face with brutal violence and then administers first aid by allowing you the entire movie to come to terms with it.Just goes to show that everything has been done… you just gotts to find a new way of treating it.