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The Terror of Forgetting

© Marilyn Graves

Memento, a Film Review Columbia TriStar DVD, 2001

There have been other films which prominently feature memory loss as a mechanism to drive the plot, but few have gotten it so emotionally right or been as suspenseful as Memento. Part mystery, part psychological thriller, this film takes us into the world of a man with damaged memory. Directed by Christopher Nolan, it is based on a short story by Jonathan Nolan.

As the film begins we are struck by its dark noir visuals. Polaroid pictures appear in front of our eyes repeatedly in this film. At one point the main character Leonard says "the world doesn't just disappear when you close your eyes, does it?"

We don't see a person first but a shot of a bloody photograph, the visual icon of what is lost to memory for Leonard. There he is, a man whose skin is covered in sweat, grime and blood--standing over a body wondering what he did.

The scenes run backwards in this film, like reading a book backwards but chapter by chapter. The film is composed of striking visual images which seem to be thrust upon us. We cannot follow a trail of meaning from one scene to the next. Instead we have to construct the meaning piece by piece, frame by frame as does Leonard. Leonard wakes in a blank, featureless hotel room and finds a key so it must be his room. A weasely man, chewing gum, grins at him saying, "Where to, Sherlock?" Leonard has to figure out who the man is and how many times he may have seen him. Leonard is constantly explaining his "condition" telling others that he has had a head injury and is now unable to form new memories. There are real case histories of people with this kind of damage. One such case is described by A. R. Luria in his book The Man with the Shattered World. The film has a suspenseful, driving pace. We hurtle along with Leonard, seeing what he sees, knowing only what he knows. We feel his chaos and participate in his compulsive efforts to retain those elusive memories. Leonard tells one of the characters that he was a particularly organized man (he can remember everything prior to his accident) and was an insurance investigator prior to his injury. He is a natural detective who wears his clues unnaturally tattooed onto his body. One of those tattoos reminds him his wife was murdered, the reason for his frenzied activities. Leonard records only the facts either on his body or on the backs of the photos he takes. Another thing one of Leonard's tattoos says "memory is treachery."

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