Memento

All right.. for those who don't know, I'm a movie buff and I love watching movies as a technician rather than an audience. So when it came down to the point where i had to decide what to blog about, one of the first things that came to my mind was to discuss about a movie. Which one? There wasn't much doubt on that front.. Memento is an instant winner when it comes to thought-provoking cinema. Why I love the movie so much, must be obvious to those who watched the movie (for those who didn't, please do watch the movie before reading this post), but there is something more to it -- I strongly relate to what i think the director wants to convey and i not only relate to, but strongly believe it too and i think that it was the best way the director could have conveyed the message.

First things first-- 'Memento means something which reminds you of the past', and that is what the movie highlights-- how important the abstract concept of memory is to a human, how unbelievably awkward, unorganized and uncomfortable life can be to a person without it. The director and screen-writer Christopher Nolan does more than an awesome job in bringing the concept onto screen. The short story was first written by Nolan's brother Jonathan Nolan. The story wasn't published and Christopher Nolan adapted the story onto the screen. The story is of a man , Leonard, suffering from a condition called short term memory loss, who is on a quest to find the murderer of his wife -- John.G .

The movie impresses right from the first frame, where the scene of a murder by Leonard is played in reverse , giving a hint, a taste of how the movie's screen play is going to be.. reverse chronological. Now why did the director choose that way of placing the scenes before the viewer? Nope, it was not to win awards for the best screenplay, but there was a motive behind it. Nolan very intelligently induces short term memory loss into his audience-- all the audience knows is what will happen next but doesn't know what happened before what is happening now. This is something which i, and many others, failed to observe, and appreciated it just as a clever way of screen-writing, but little does the unaware audience know that the director has already begun meddling with his psyche. Why this is done is completely my interpretation and I'll come back to it later. So, as a result of this screenplay, the audience is left helpless when it comes to choosing the 'right guy' among the other two important characters, teddy and Natalie. Just as in any other good suspense-thriller, the viewer ( me especially) undergoes a good "pendulum motion" in his brain, bouncing among contradictory conclusions. He is in complete doubt as to who is the good one and who is the bad one, but one thing his sub-conscious brain is damn sure about is that one of them is the good one and the other is the bad one. That is where the punch comes into play, leonard is the bad done and this is where the movie goes into a whole new level and becomes one of the best movies ever made. NO.. don't jump to conclusions, :) i'm not at all saying that this twist is what makes the movie exceptional, but what i appreciate is what this twist manages to do with the psychology of the audience, and for this to happen , the stage was set right from the first frame.

The climax of the movie actually is a scene which happens somewhere in the middle when all the scenes are put chronologically in order. This is the scene where leonard decides to continue his quest, and hunt down teddy, taking him to be the murderer of leonard's wife. Now this is where personal interpretations come into play. Does leonard do this intentionally , knowing that teddy is a cop and not the killer, or is he in a confused state and eventually concluding(erratically) that teddy is the one ? I strongly go with the former scenario, where leonard knows teddy is not the killer, but still decides to hunt him down. Why do i think so?

1) if leonard knew that teddy was the one, he could have killed him on the spot. But he didn't. why ? the second scenario doesn't answer this question, but the one with which i go gives a satisfying answer.
2) And the obvious dialogue, " Do i lie to myself to be happy? In your case, Teddy... yes I will."

Now , obviously the most important point the movie wants to make is the importance of memory, how important it is to make one's actions meaningful. The movie goes on to the extent of introducing a new theory in philosophy that revenge has no meaning without someone to remember it.. and how true, yet disturbing it sounds. Portraying all this on the big screen is an achievement in itself which i appreciate to the core and so do most of the film critics. But what i want to present in this post is my interpretation of the movie, which has nothing to do with the concept of memory or short term memory loss. Something which hit me the very first time I saw the movie, and got stronger ever since. It goes like this...

Lets start from the beginning. As i said before, the screenplay is more than instrumental in inducing short term memory loss into the audience. Now why was this done? So that the viewer feels like the protagonist, feels what he feels, connects with him, and relates to him easily rather than treating him just as a character with a faulty brain. There are many more things in the movie which help achieve this phenomenon of 'bonding with the protagonist', the next most important being the direction. Awesome direction and performances help the audience involve into the character, especially in the scene in Natalie's house , where leonard is almost in tears when he feels he is being messed with. The dialogue deserve another hats off... the dialogue which he says over to Natalie , " they didn't need to look for anybody else. I was the only guy who disagreed with facts and I had brain damage". This dialogue was , according to me, the most important of the lot, as it forced me to sympathize with Leonard. All this done, the stage is set for the grand finale.

At a time when I was completely confused as to who the villain was among Teddy and natalie, i came to know in the climax, that it doesn't matter, coz the villain is the "hero". This is where I begin to feel a hatred, both for the character and myself for trusting him so much. At first I don't understand why, but when i ponder a little, I conclude that the reason i hate the character so much is that he lied to himself that teddy was THE John.G. Now I start thinking, "Oh that's bad, I hate Leonard so much because he lied to himself about something. Lied to himself that teddy is John.G, and why did he do that? Because teddy knows the truth. Teddy knows that it was Leonard's fault that his wife dies and no one else's, and that is a truth which is disturbing him. So he decides to eliminate him, and the truth along with him. Leonard lies to himself to be happy; he is ready to kill the truth to make his life comfortable. So this is the crime which is inspiring so much hatred in me. But wait a minute, isn't this what i'm doing in the first place ? isn't this what everyone around me is doing ? isn't this what the world is indulged in today-- believing in what is comfortable to it, forgetting what is disturturbing , and lying to themselves to keep themselves happy. " This is where the ultimate respect for the movie pours into one's heart. All the scenes in the movie start changing colour like a holograph.

In the scene where leonard says, sammy jankis wasn't organized, and was a failure, but he himself was well organized by putting notes of anything and everything and thus achieving what he wants to. This , he says , is because he (Leonard) has a drive, a motive which he badly wants to achieve which keeps him going. During that scene you feel a respect and awe towards the character, but what happens if his motive is fulfilled? He fears, that is when he becomes sammy jankis ( which is himself, actually). He dreads his past and so is escaping from it at the cost of other human beings' lives. That is when the respect for Leonard begins to disintegrate.

In the black and white scenes where he explains about sammy jankis on phone to someone, he refers to sammy jankis in third person, which should have been first person --- a very big lie ; this he does to let him forget that his wife died because of him. Again, inspiring hatred.

These scenes and many other scenes show how leonard keeps lying to himself for his good, but what the movie tries to say is that this eventually leaves you no-where, which is more than true and which happens to be the biggest lesson i've ever learnt from a movie.

I know, this is a very different way of looking at the movie, but this is what I felt most obvious, inspiring and touching -- a slap on the face of any one watching the movie who lives life with a fear of facing the truth and molding the reality around him to something which he feels fit, though it might not be the truth. And the best way of conveying this is to connect the viewer to the maximum extent to Leonard (that's what the whole movie until the climax does) and then break the bond with a sudden shock to create disgust and hatred for the character we connected so much with(that's what the climax does) and thus giving us a message, rather, teaching us a lesson.

I hope all of you reading this post were able to connect with what i tried to express-- my interpretation of the memento. Watch the movie again in this new light and please do post in your comments. There are many more ways of interpreting the movie which i would love, to but cannot cover in this post (hope i'll come back with some). But all your interpretations are most welcome. That's it for now, hope this wasn't too long or boring at least. See you all soon.

cheers,
Ram