Memento
A killer with Amnesia ? There are very few Suspense/Thriller movies with this concept. When you think of a killer, you almost consider that person an animal. In this case he would technically be an animal because the one of the things that separate a human from an animal is in fact memory. Go figure. What this character represents, the structure of the film and the refreshingly new idea brought to the table is what made this movie great, brilliant. Leonard is on a quest of vengeance.
This movie starts off with a close up shot of the main character, Leonard Shelby, an investigator that is trying to figure out who raped and killed his wife, looking at photographs of a dead body.
As the move progresses it reveals that Leonard Shelby is in fact the killer of this man named Teddy. The movie is backwards. He takes the photograph of Teddy, then it rewinds back to him shooting Teddy and then all the way back to the Inn where the movies then stops moving backwards and continues forward. He uses pictures and tattoos for him to remember who he has to kill and where he needs to go because of his short term memory and on the bottom front and back of the photographs he’ll have the person’s name and number and something like “Don’t believe his lies. He is the one kill him.” in order to remember his duties.
The main character can’t remember anything really except the day his wife was killed. His mind is so complex but at the same time understanding. He has the ability to remember something so explicit and yet can’t remember something as simple as a name. The character’s problem is what makes him unique and interesting and makes me want more.
As the film continued I noticed something going on with the colors the director decided to used in this film. Nolan used black and white sequences to show what happens in order and use the parts in color to show it in reverse. This was also a huge part of why the film was entertaining because he kept the viewers thinking and thinking until finally the two different sequences met. This also made me feel what the character was feeling, confused and lost, which was a good thing.
In the pictures below it shows the two different color sequences, the one in black and white going forwards and the color one is played in reverse.
The middle-end to the end of the story, the main character meets with this woman, Sammy Jankis who at first has a weird relationship with Leonard. He met her during his job before the attack in his home happened. (The attack killed his wife and is the reason he has amnesia) We find out that Sammy was in a car accident. Later on in the movie she kept asking for her insulin but didn’t remember she had it already, neither one of them remembered and as a result she fell into a coma and died.
There wasn’t much music in the movie but mainly towards the climax it became very intense and scary. Every time the main character got close to kill someone the music became louder and scary , but right before he does kill the the music is calm which always is scary.
The climax was also relieving to the mind after all this thinking, it reveals piece by piece and makes sense out of everything in chronological order (black & white) . His wife who was Sammy wasn’t really anyone and his actual wife survived the attack and was diabetic and that his wife died of insulin overdose and not “Sammy”. Teddy ends up saying that he even has a “John G” name. This causes Leonard to write down Teddy’s driver’s plate and and get it tattooed on him and that lead to the very start of the movie to Teddy’s death.
