Memento was written and directed by Christopher Nolan based loosely on a short story, “Memento Mori,” by his brother Jonathan Nolan. In both stories, a man’s wife was raped and murdered and the husband suffers a severe head injury during the attack. He has been left with anterograde amnesia – meaning he has short-term memory loss and is unable to make new memories. In the movie, Guy Pearce plays Leonard Shelby who believes there were two attackers, that he killed one of them during the attack, and that he is now after the guy who got away. To keep on the trail the best ways he can, Leonard keeps various notes, Polaroid pictures, and even permanent tattoos to help remind himself each new day of his mission. It does not take the viewer very long to understand that this system of organization can be manipulated by those who want to use Leonard’s anger and condition to realize their own goals.
Buy Memento Blu-rayThere are two very different ways of telling the story of Memento interlinked throughout: first, there is a black-and-white story told sequentially but non-linearly, and second, there is a color story told in reverse order starting at the end and moving toward the beginning. This method of storytelling can be confusing in spots, especially in the beginning as the viewer gets used to it; however, it also sheds a light on the pains Leonard must be suffering trying to solve the murder of his wife while being unable to keep almost anything clear since her death.
The black-and-white sequences mostly involve Leonard on the phone to an unknown party telling the story of Sammy Jankis. Jankis also had anterograde amnesia, and Leonard’s task at his insurance job was to discover if Jankis was faking or not. Leonard decides that Jankis’s condition was psychological and unclaimable through his insurance. This convinces Jankis’s wife that her husband is faking, and to prove it, she keeps telling Sammy that it is time for her insulin shot. She continuously believes Sammy will realize he will kill his wife if he keeps giving her injections, but he never stops. Leonard believes this story is very important to his own and his most prominent tattoo reads “Remember Sammy Jankis.”
The color sequences, told in reverse, tell the story of Leonard’s day-to-day dealings with people who see how easy it is to manipulate his condition (the hotel manager [Mark Boone Junior] readily admits to charging Leonard for two rooms at the same time knowing that he won’t remember what he’s been told within hours). Joe Pantialano keeps showing up as the helpful “Teddy,” a crooked cop who is using Leonard to kill his own small-town enemies. Carrie-Anne Moss, as Natalie, is a bartender who believes she can get Leonard to kill the two-bit drug dealer who has his claws deep into her flesh.
The wending of the two storylines are ingeniously cut together in such a way as to draw one in and root for Leonard at the same time as knowing the ways in which he is being manipulated will probably only get worse and go on for a long time. It is a short cast of characters, but each actor adds to the tension, and misdirection, in their unique ways. If you only know Nolan’s work from his most recent endeavors, give yourself the treat of watching Memento, destined to be a classic.
