Memento - Blog Posts

shutupcrime

5 months ago

Don’t know if I trust the way Christopher Nolan writes women for him to be allowed to tackle anything Greek mythology related

Neo-noir and Representative Villains

-Introduction-

The neo-noir genre encompasses stories with a diverse set of settings and characters though often utilizing common noir tropes such as femme fatales, hard-boiled detectives and a complex murder investigation. However, an often overlooked trend in the neo-noir genre is the trope of perceived villains and a character’s realization that perception itself is the actual thing terrorizing them. Usually, using definite "truths" to who the nature of the villain to vanquish the thing terrorizing them.

-Battles Against Fate-

Sometimes this manifests as the characters themselves fighting against the theme or law of the universe. For example, No Country for Old Men explores the absurdist belief that the universe is chaos. Both Anton Chigurh and the cop chasing him search for some kind of reasoning or truth despite there being none. The villain of Anton Chigurh is only a reflection of what's really terrorizing the cop's mind, which is the fear of a new evil rising that follows chaos. This is why he searches for answers to vanquish that fear.

-Loops in Psychology-

Other times it manifests as a loop in the character's own psychology. In Memento the main character has short term memory loss which hinders his quest to avenge his murdered wife. In the end it's revealed that he killed the murderer years ago and he's purposefully forgetting and killing new people over and over again to give his life meaning. In the end the thing terrorizing him isn't the criminal who killed his wife but rather himself. Another example is in Drive where the main character is in a mental loop of believing the truth that his new girlfriend's murderous husband is the villain and he is the good guy. By the end, he realizes truth that he can never escape from the cyclical loop of isolation he is in and returns to being a criminal.