Memento (2000)

Guy Pearce holding one of his "mementos"

Star Rating: ***½
"Memento"—a Latin word meaning “remember”. "Memento" follows the adventures of Leonard (Guy Pearce), a man with short term memory-loss trying to find his wife’s killer, but is hindered by his condition. He therefore had to take photographs and write himself notes and tattoo really important information on his body.

These are the obvious “mementos” in the film, but there are additional mementos too. "Memento" is that it is based on a story called "Memento Mori", written by Nolan’s brother Jonathan, a title which translates as “remember you will die.” From the start of the movie, we remember that somebody dies. In the beginning this isn’t such a bad thing, but in the end we wonder was it really poetic justice, and how many more people will die?

Leonard Shelby is an ex-insurance investigator who is trying to find the man who raped and murdered his wife. After he finished with his wife, he cracked Leonard’s head against a mirror, giving him Anterograde amnesia, or short term memory loss. This condition prevents Leonard from forming new memories—he can remember who he is and every that happened before “the incident”. “I have this condition,” he explains to the characters he meets, usually greeted by a “you told me already.”

Nevertheless, Leonard remains dedicated to finding and murdering the man who killed his wife and took his memory away. To remember things, Leonard takes photographs of people and places and he even tattoos information on his body. He is aided by a bartender named Natalie (Carrie Anne Moss) and a friendly guy named Teddy (Joe Pantoliano).

The plot is told in reverse chronological order. In between the chapters told backwards there is another story told in black and white, involving in a hotel room Leonard talking to some unknown person over the phone about Sammy Jankis, a man with short term memory loss who Leonard frequently compares himself to, that advances in chronological order. Sound confusing? It is, and it’s supposed to be.

Sammy is a very crucial subplot of Memento. During the days of Leonard’s career as an insurance investigator, he investigated the claim that Sammy had gotten Anetrograde amnesia due to an injury he received in a car accident and should be covered for physical disability. When Leonard is diagnosed with the same problem, he tattoos "Remember Sammy Jankis" on his hand. “Sammy Jankis had the same problem,” he reflects, “but he really had no system. He’d write himself a ridiculous amount of notes, but he’d get them all mixed up.”

By his use of a nonlinear plotline, Nolan effectively puts us inside Leonard’s mind and displays the intense confusion inside his head as he reads his memos and tattoos and tries to remember what he’s been doing and what he’s going to do. We encounter characters who we think are good, then a few chapters forward (or backwards) we discover that maybe they weren’t so good. Leonard doesn’t remember all this because of his condition, and we don’t remember because—well, we haven’t seen it yet.

Warning: Here be Spoilers:

Leonard is a classic Noir antagonist. He is, in a word, ambiguous. Nolan’s script makes the audience sympathize with him and want the best for him. Yet underneath that smiling exterior lurks some kind of homicidal monster. Personally the idea that he kills people to make himself happy, that he kills the man who gave him so much help just to give meaning to his life, makes me hate this man. Let’s see, smiling and likable, yet complicated and destructive. Could this be the new Norman Bates?

Spoilers Be Gone

Nolan’s second film after the dramatic Neo-Noir "Following" (1998), which was a bleak but nevertheless impressive directorial debut for Nolan, "Memento" reflects the ethic of a born filmmaker and storyteller. Much like Quentin Tarantino ("Reservoir Dogs", "Pulp Fiction"), Nolan has a gift for presenting an interesting plotline and giving it to life by cutting it up and serving it out of order.

The charisma and crisp quality that Nolan brings to the screen is most refreshing indeed. I wrote in my review for "Following" that the title as well as the quality of the film seems to suggest that more good films will follow from Christopher Nolan. That was just circumstantial evidence, but "Memento" proves that point. There is also one scene in the movie when Leonard passes a comic book store where the Batman logo in the window. Perhaps "Memento" can forget the past, but can Nolan’s movies tell the future?