Memento: Mori

Amnesia as a plot device is pretty much a cliche; it has been done to death in books, films and television. Even the best of stories aren't immune to how lame it can be (24's first season was great except for Teri Bauer's amnesia storyline), since it is much easier to do poorly than to do well. Memento is something different. I'm sure that there have been other stories about anterograde amnesia, but as far as I know, none have gained the following that Memento has.

Unlike retrograde amnesia, which erases the memories you already have and forces you to piece everything together, anterograde amnesia prevents you from making new memories. All memories up to a given event are preserved, but after that, everything you experience seems to take place directly after said event. I'm sure that not knowing who you were can't be easy to live with, but not knowing who you have become, not knowing why you are where you are or are doing what you're doing must be worse.

Most of Nolan's films are not told chronologically, but Memento has one of the most interesting storytelling devices I've encountered. The very first frame we see is the one that takes place at the end of the story being told. The movie runs backwards, and the end of each scene replays the beginning of the scene that preceded it. A set-up like this requires that the viewer pay close attention to events, so that they remember why the current scene is significant. But this also puts us in the mind of Leonard, the protagonist. If we don't know what happened, we are working with just as much information as him.

Leonard lost his ability to make new memories one night when two thugs threw him into a mirror. He woke up when he heard noises, and found his wife being raped by one of the men, and when he tried to help her, the other knocked him out. Since then, he has been trying to find the thug who got away, hoping to avenge his wife, who not only was raped, but died as a result of the incident. Since he can't remember anything he does for longer than five minutes, he is forced to take notes about the case (many of which he tattoos on his body) and take Polaroid photos of people he meets so that he can prove to himself that he knows them. His situation makes him a ridiculously easy mark for people trying to scam him, so he takes extreme precautions to avoid being taken advantage of.

This system of note taking means that he can only rely on what he's written. This may seem like a fail-safe system, especially since he only pays attention to notes written in his own handwriting, but he doesn't account for the fact that something you may believe to be true at one time may turn out to be false. If a normal person were to make such a realization, their attitude towards the information they once thought true would change, but if Leonard doesn't have access to a writing utensil or some other way to make sure he can make a not of the realization will mean that the new information will be lost.

And even if Leonard had a perfect system for taking notes, memories do more for us than to just keep us informed of events. Without them, Leonard can never truly make a new friend, since every time he runs into someone he's met, he is meeting them for the first time (in his eyes). And even more than that, he no longer remembers who he is. A recurring line throughout the film is that Leonard Shelby is the name of the man he was, not the man he is now. Leonard can never remember if he's happy or sad, whether his life is fulfilling, and, most importantly, he will never know if he has avenged his wife.

In a science fiction class I took during my undergrad years, we watched the movie Total Recall, which dealt with whether "we are our memories". The film made the claim that our identities are not dependent on our memories, but I think that the idea is much more complex than presented in Recall. We are not just our memories because we live in the moment; we often make spontaneous decisions and, hopefully, have the ability to experience the present. However, our memories, our experiences dictate the decisions we make. We sometimes ignore old mistakes, but most of the time, our decisions are based directly on past decisions we've made. Furthermore, our personalities are shaped by our memories; cynics are cynical because of memories of being let down, while memories of people doing good deeds tend to give us a positive outlook on humanity. But as I said, it's more complicated than that; some personality traits may be genetic or gleaned from parents. After all, some people are assholes for seemingly no reason at all.

The first time I saw Memento, I thought that I was seeing a good movie, but I wondered how Nolan would end the film. We'd seen the end of the chronology, so what kind of twist could he spring on us? At first, I thought the film would end with us seeing the incident that gave him his amnesia, but after seeing a flashback to it mid-way through, I was perplexed as to how it could end. So when the end finally came, I was floored by what actually transpired. This was the first Christopher Nolan movie that I fully remember (I've seen Insomnia, but I don't remember it too well), and it gave me undying respect for him as a director and a writer (though I'm not sure how much credit he should get for that, since he adapted it from his brother's short story Memento Mori).

Up next: Mysteries and magic...