I wish there were more filmmakers like Christopher Nolan making movies, mostly because I love a good mindfuck movie (I think that’s a genre) and he excels at writing and directing them.
Here are some locations and notes from Inception and Memento.
Inception
In the dream Ariadne and Cobb share when Cobb is explaining to her how all of the dream business works, they start off at Café Debussy and then they walk across Pont de Bir-Hakeim. Both are in Paris, although Café Debussy was renamed for the movie.
The scenes that were set in Mombassa were actually filmed in Tangier.
Robert Fischer’s first and second dream levels, including the draw bridge, were shot in and around Los Angeles. Believe it or not, the train that goes down the middle of the street was not CGI. Here’s a video of the train heading downtown for the shoot in L.A.
Maybe George Lucas has me brainwashed into thinking everything these days is (or has to be) CGI. I also assumed the menacing building in the snow was computer generated too, but it turns out that entire sequence was filmed in Canada at the Fortress Mountain ski resort.
Memento
Both Leonard’s hotel (The Discount Inn) and Dodd’s hotel (The Mountcrest Inn) are in Los Angeles, but they were renamed for the movie.
The Grinders in Glendale (they called it City Grill) where Leonard meets Natalie is no longer open. Sorry.
The fictional Emma’s Tattoo parlor was set up in an empty Los Angeles storefront.
Ferdy’s Bar where Natalie helps with Jimmy’s drug deals is actually a dive bar called The Blue Room in Burbank.