Memento is an American psychological thriller by Christopher Nolan that narrates the story about Leonard Shelby, a man who suffers from loss of long-term memory, which prevents the heroes from storing new memories. In order to remember the events from the past, Shelby develops a system of notes, photos, and tattoos that remind of his intentions. The movie has a peculiar narrative structure that is composed of two chronologically opposite lines.
The first sequence of scenes proposes a set of black-and-white episodes that provide a chronological order of events. This part is combined with as series of colored scenes that are presented in a reverse order. Both sequences are logically united at the end of story to make sense of the scenes. The nonlinear organization makes the reader be concentrated on the plot, which is a peculiar feature of all Nolan’s movies.
The sophisticated structure of the movie prevents the viewers from making sense of the scenes and contributing to their puzzling nature. Despite the fact that the main plot runs backwards, the logic is still underscored in the hero’s actions for which logic is the only tool for coordinating his everyday world.
Shelby’s short-term memory does not allow him to find his wife’s killer; it also makes him an antagonist of the story whose only goal is to find the man who killed his wife. As he strives to remember, the hero develops an advanced system of recollections that permit him to continue his searching for the truth.
The tattoos on his body testify to his firm beliefs in the fact of killing, but Leonard never understands that facts imprinted on his body could be as subjective as the recollections. Therefore, the conclusions he makes about the surrounding events premise on his solid observations rather than on facts and hard evidence. Therefore, Sheldon faces a challenge of distinguishing between true and false facts.
According to Lin, “Logic is no help against the nuances of this situation and its inadequacy is perfectly illustrated when Leonard…is confronted by a warning from another dubious ally” (27). Due to the slight boundary between the subjective and the objective, there are considerable doubts concerning the adequacy of Shelby’s intentions.
The main plot of the movie prioritizes the protagonist mission despite the disoriented scene structure and Shelby’s failure to build the sequences of events stipulating the crime. However, at the end of the story, two scene sequels are united to organize the entire picture and makes sense of the hero’s actions. The end of the movie also undermines the logic and objectivity that Leonard employs in the pursuit of justice.
Throughout the movie, the hero suffers from constant victimization because the recollection about the moment of his wife killing never leaves him alone. The hero, therefore, is considered the victim of short-term memories and violence.
Failure to feel the sense of time, the hero could not realize how long he lives without his wife. At the same time, the undertone of uncertainly is intertwined with his wives’ remarks about Leonard’s genuine intentions and goals. In fact, further events in the movie make the viewers focus on the uncertainty and ambivalence of his notes and conclusions that distort the facts.
Aside from the plot of the movie, as well as the objectivity of Leonard’s judgments, the film focuses on the hero’s ability to cognize, reason, and connect the facts into a logical chain of events. As Sternberg notes, “the film illustrates the ways the brain continuously collects…inputs from our surroundings and our emotional responses to them to form the memories that create our own unique and constantly evolving identity (1661).
Mysterious events of Leonard’s life are combined with the horrible death of his wife, and the viewers try to collect the glues into a whole. The story, therefore, emphasizes the incredible importance of memory for putting all episodes into one logical story. For the hero, the present time is the only time he lives in, but the viewers receive new experience while observing the hero’s recollection and evolution.
Therefore, Sternberg agrees that, “without memory, events happen, emotions are felt, and times moves, but those experiencing the passing show cannot retain any of it” (1661).
The hero, therefore, is doomed to face old experiences and re-live them again and again to focus on the moment he needs. Therefore, the sense of the self is exterminated because Leonard stops changing his experience whereas viewers gain new experience while viewing new details revealed in the scenes.
While watching the movie, the viewers should also rely on their memory only in order to keep track of all the details throughout the movie. However, the end of the story is so sophisticated that they should go back to the very beginning of the movie to find out the logical sequences (Sternberg 1661).
At the same time, while connecting the events by means of our memory, viewers also question themselves whether the memory is a reliable tool for analyzing and reasoning the objective reality. Various approaches to storing and retaining memories are brightly highlighted in the movie; more importantly, the movie also focuses the connection between body and mind that premise on the Freudian theory of Skin Ego.
Therefore, film discovers the sophisticated structure and interaction of time and space in forming the memory storage. At the same time, it is also necessary to define how the hero’s subjectivity influences the perception of temporal and spatial characteristics. On the one hand, memory is the only warehouse of information that a person relies on to shape their outlooks and experiences in live.
On the other hand, Christopher Nolan questions the reliability of memory as an objective source of data because each detail that the hero finds out focuses on his previously forgotten experiences (Pile 135). So, each time he receives information, Leonard can interpret it differently in the light of the new circumstances surrounding the facts.
With regard to the above-presented arguments, the concept of time, as the factors that influence the searching for absolute truth, creates new concepts in the movie.
Memento refers to a mediation in which there is no place for absolute truth but a series of lies that are followed with other false assumptions based on these lies (Lyons 130). Therefore, the movie does not focus on details, but also on Shelby’s ability to connect these details by means of logic and order, but not by means of memory.
In conclusion, Memento bears a complex mixture of temporal and spatial deviations that premise on the hero’s failure to gain new experiences and connect them to the old ones. Without a memory, a person loses the opportunity to feel and understand.
The second focus of the movie refers to the reliability and objectivity of the hero’s judgments because the facts he learns within the short cam perceive differently. Therefore, there is no absolute truth, but a reasoned, logical change of facts that are connected by memory and experience.
Works Cited
Lin, Francie. “Double Think”, The Threepenny Review. 87 (2001): 27. Print.
Lyons, Diran. “Vengeance, the Powers of the False, and the Time-Image in Christopher Nolan’s Memento.” Angelaki: Journal Of The Theoretical Humanities 11.1 (2006): 127-135. Print.
Pile, Steve. “Topographies of the Body-And-Mind: Skin Ego, Body Ego, And The Film ‘Memento’.” Subjectivity: International Journal Of Critical Psychology 27.1 (2009): 134-154. Print.
Sternberg, Esther. “Piecing Together a Puzzling World”, Science. 292.5522 (2001): 1661-1662. Print.