Memento is
striking and a challenging film to watch.
As a sort of glimpse into the world of Leonard Shelby, a man who cannot make new memories, the narrative is comprised of scenes pasted together in reverse
sequence. A man walks into a bar, looks at
the note in his hand, and does what it says. We have
no idea why he is there. Neither does he. After a
brief exchange with the barmaid, the scene ends, and
we open on this same man, driving down the
highway and
stopping at the bar, walking in.
Each scene is a moment on its own - we don't know
what has come before, because we have not been shown.
We only know what will happen, because that
is the scene that just finished. It is an excercise
in concentration, at first, to link the end of the
second sequence you see to the beginning of the preceding
scene. A stimulating exercise, and disconcerting. The only
reason we don't know the events that led up to whatever
we are observing is that we haven't been through it yet -
but Leonard doesn't remember, regardless.
Leonard is bent on avenging his wife's rape and murder, the same incident that left him with this condition. His method for remembering things is writing notes on Polaroid shots, which he will not believe if they are not his own handwriting. This brings a whole new dimension to photographic memory. Clues to the murderer get tattooed on his body, when he is certain of them. When he pieces
clues together to form a conclusion, he has to write
this conclusion down, too, and what action his conclusion
should lead to, or else he will not remember it.
We take things for granted - some things we know. This
is water, it will be wet when it spills. But that is
only because we remember it, we have seen it before,
ever since, and learned. This is glass, it will
break if I throw it at the wall, but this I know
from the past, from life. Things like this Leonard
knows, because they were truths he encountered
before the 'incident'. But trust - how does one
develop trust if they have no recollection of a
person at all? And pain - how does one heal, if there is no seeming passage of time, if the last thing you remember is still your wife dying? Closeness, and love - there
can be no way of developing these, if there is never
recognition, no familiarity.
It is only a small glimpse, harrowing, of what it
must be like to live without new memories. Snatches
of time - but you can't be sure you have met this
person before, without shuffling through your
photographs, and you can't know whether or not
you actually took that photograph unless it has
your handwriting on it. You don't know
what you have done 10 minutes before, you don't
know if you have met this person before, you don't become familiar with their inflections and smells and
mannerisms, because all you remember is now.
Harrowing, powerful, and thought-provoking.