Christopher Nolan has already created a modern cult classic with his second feature film: “Memento” (2000) tells the story of a man looking for his wife’s killer – a project that makes him difficult due to a rare form of amnesia. Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) has to make do with Polaroid photos, tattoos and notes to remember his progress and findings a day later. The highlight of the film: Nolan tells the search for clues backwards!
Many critics considered ‘Memento’ one of the best films of the year, and the indie thriller was also hugely successful at the box office. So successful actually Just a few years later, two (!) new films were made – about which the later “Oppenheimer“-Director was not very satisfied and showed…
There are great, visually powerful, exuberantly original films from Bollywood. And there are (usually unauthorized) remakes of American hit films. Just four years after the original film, Indian filmmaker AR Murugadoss attempted a Tamil adaptation but was disappointed again three years later to make a second ‘Memento’ remake in Hindi – which became a huge success in India.
The similarities between “Memento” and the two “Ghajini” films are striking: the story is virtually the same, and Murugadoss even copied some sequences one-on-one. Yet the American film and the Bollywood version differ significantly in many ways. While ‘Memento’ is a dark neo-noir that does not exceed the two-hour mark, ‘Ghajini’ is a three-hour action thriller that does not miss the musical numbers so typical of Bollywood. The iconic tattoo scene from ‘Memento’ is completely missing, but it is still quite clear which film inspired it.
Christopher Nolan was not happy with the remake
Bollywood actor and producer Anil Kapoor, who auditioned for a role in “Inception” and says he is a big fan of Christopher Nolan’s films, talked about a conversation he had with “The Dark Knight” during a television interview that ‘Creator’ led. He clearly expressed his dissatisfaction that his permission was not asked nor mentioned in the credits.
But while Warner Bros. took legal action against a Bollywood remake of ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’, Nolan left it at that and refrained from taking legal action. But perhaps the news of the star director’s anger and disappointment was unpleasant enough for those responsible – there have been no other unauthorized Nolan remakes in Bollywood since then.