Memento Review

In the film Memento, the director Christopher Nolan uses the theme revenge for the death of a loved one as the driving force of Lenny’s quest to find the man who raped and murdered his wife. I thought the narration of the film was the most interesting but still a bit confusing to keep up with. The black and white part of the film was moving forward while the colour part of the film was in a reverse sequence. The narration revealed only Lenny’s thoughts and feelings, but not any other characters. This narration causes suspense in Memento because Lenny often does not even know where he is or what he’s suppose to be doing and his thoughts reflect his confusion to an audience trying to put the stories pieces together through Lenny. The scenes are narrated by his thoughts, at the beginning almost every scene, Lenny is starting a new memory, almost like he’s “waking up” from a dream. His thoughts mostly help him to figure out the new setting he finds himself in.

After Teddy tells Lenny about who Sammy Jankins really is, and how Lenny has created this alternate reality in which he seeks to kill John G. so he doesn’t have to cope with the fact that his illness killed his wife. After Teddy mention this the film revolves around the question Lenny asks himself, “Do I lie to myself to be happy?” which he admits he’ll keep looking for a John G. even though he knows he already killed him, this is the only thing he has to live for. This totally changes the way the audience sees the reverse order sequence of the narrative structure.

            Close-ups are used for examining Lenny’s elaborate tattoos. In order for the audience to be able to read the tattoos and find out important information to Leonard’s quest to kill, a close up is essential it helps the story progress and brings unity to events in the story that seemed out of place/confusing before. Also Lenny’s polaroids are a key part of the story, especially the picture of Teddy. Having close-ups of Lenny adding three notes to Teddy’s Polaroid at three different parts of the story, demonstrates how significant that information to the story.