makeshiftmind

Memento is, at its core, a simple story about vengeance. Leonard Shelby’s beautiful young wife was raped and murdered by a man known only as John G., and Leonard wants retribution. Unfortunately, Lenoard suffers from a “condition” that prevents him from making new memories. His wife’s death served as the catalyst for his disorder, so he can remember everything prior to the incident, but he can only retain new experiences for very brief periods of time before he forgets them entirely. Now, his only method of “remembering” people, places and events is to either take a quick photograph and jot himself a note, or to employ a more permanent solution: body tattoos. While Leonard’s condition makes his mission difficult, he is determined to succeed.

Warning: plot spoilers ahead. I would highly recommend that you see the film and then read on.

Prior to the death of Leonard’s wife, Leonard worked as a claims investigator for a health insurance company. Part of what drives Leonard is the memory of a man named Sammy Jenkis who, in a stroke of cruel irony, had suffered the same fate as Leonard – through a freak accident, he lost his ability to generate short term memories. Sammy’s wife filed an insurance claim, and Leonard was sent to investigate. Leonard, however, believed that the cause of Sammy’s problem was psychological, not physical. On that basis he denied the claim, and sent Sammy and his wife home. Sammy’s wife, heartbroken at his condition and moved by the desire to help him, put Sammy through several “conditioning tests” in an effort to help him “snap out of” his psychological condition. As her final test, she continues to ask Sammy to administer her insulin shots until she herself goes into shock and dies. Because of Sammy’s condition, he could not remember each time he gave her an insulin shot, and so unwittingly became her killer. Sammy was then placed in a mental home where his condition prevented him from even remembering his own wife’s death.

Leonard refused to repeat Sammy’s mistake:

“Sammy Jankis wrote himself endless notes. But he’d get mixed up. I’ve got a more graceful solution to the memory problem. I’m disciplined and organized. I use habit and routine to make my life possible. Sammy had no drive. No reason to make it work… Me? Yeah, I got a reason.”

Cinematically, Memento is entirely unique. The story is told in small 5-10 minute sequences, but entirely in reverse. At the very beginning of the film, Leonard draws a gun and kills a man who we later learn is “John G.” The rest of the film is a backward progression of how Leonard identified and tracked John G. while battling his own condition, and the final, ever-present memory of his wife’s murder.

The only other major characters in the film are Leonard’s mysterious friend Teddy, a police officer who warns “Lenny” that someone may be using his crusade for John G. to manipulate Leonard into killing the wrong person, and Natalie, the widow of a drug czar who was brutally murdered. Each character is intertwined with the others in a complex way that the storyline carefully reveals. Natalie helps Leonard because she knows what it feels like to loose someone—Teddy helps Leonard out of concern for Leonard’s safety. Or so the viewer thinks. As the film progresses, their real motives are revealed as Leonard slowly unravels the puzzle of John G.

Like all important films, Memento offers some commentary on important topics in the character of Leonard Shelby. We are led, though a very elaborate effort to generate empathy, to side with Leonard in his quest to kill John G. The view wants vengeance just as much as Leonard does—and the enormity of the crime solidifies this desire. But like all cases of vengeance, will retribution actually help heal the pain of loss? And in Leonard’s case, as Natalie points out, if he actually managed to kill John G., he would not remember the event anyway. His condition makes his quest futile, though he refuses to believe it because, in his mind, his wife deserves vindication.

An alternative rock group called Staple actually deals with the issue of vengeance portrayed in Memento in their song “Remember Sammy Jenkis”:

Bottled up inside, and swallowing me
I’ve fallen in love with hate, and now I’m finding that it’s too late
This bitterness won’t leave, so now I see
By harboring these memories, they now own me…

It’s not everything I thought that it would be –
Living with the past, so fervently
And all that I’ve learned through this misery
Is that memory is treachery

Leonard refuses to let himself believe that his actions have no meaning, simply because he can’t remember them. He believes that he is justified in his quest, and that his bitterness and pain will be eliminated if he can only bring his wife’s killer to his demise. He justifies himself to Natalie by stating that:

“My wife deserves vengeance. Doesn’t make a difference whether I know about it. Just because there are things I don’t remember doesn’t make my actions meaningless. The world doesn’t just disappear when you close your eyes, does it? Anyway, maybe I’ll take a photograph to remind myself, get another freaky tattoo.”

The viewer is made to feel strong support for Leonard precisely because of the tender nature of his case. In several moving dialogs in the film (the dialog ALONE is worth watching the movie), Leonard reminisces about his wife and the love they shared. It is abundantly evident that she was Leonard’s first love, and that her death is a loss that transcends his “condition”, driving him towards final vengeance. When Leonard meets Natalie for information in a local restaurant, she asks him to reminisce:

Natalie: Tell me about her again.
Leonard Shelby: Why?
Natalie: Because you like to remember her.
Leonard Shelby: She was beautiful. To me, she was perfect.
Natalie: No, don’t just recite the words. Close your eyes… and remember her.
Leonard Shelby: You can just feel the details. The bits and pieces you never bothered to put into words. And you can feel these extreme moments… even if you don’t want to. You put these together, and you get the feel of a person. Enough to know how much you miss them… and how much you hate the person who took them away.

In another scene, Leonard finds himself unable to sleep. He begins to wonder if he’ll ever be able to let go of his wife—to let her rest in peace.

“I don’t even know how long she’s been gone. It’s like I’ve woken up in bed and she’s not here… because she’s gone to the bathroom or something. But somehow, I know she’s never going to come back to bed. If I could just… reach over and touch… her side of the bed, I would know that it was cold, but I can’t. I know I can’t have her back… but I don’t want to wake up in the morning, thinking she’s still here. I lie here not knowing… how long I’ve been alone. So how… how can I heal? How am I supposed to heal if I can’t… feel time?”

Another theme in the film is connection between the mind and reality. Leonard lives in a world where his mind—his memories—are created with photographs, notes, and tattoos. But Leonard sees this as a mild setback. For him, memory itself can be the real hindrance. He is concerned with facts, not memory.

“Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They’re just an interpretation, they’re not a record, and they’re irrelevant if you have the facts.”

The problem for Leonard, however, is that the “facts” are often not what they appear to be—or what others want him to see. He is so single-mindedly determined that what he knows as truth, is in fact the way things are. His only means of verification are his own notes—but his assumption is that he understood the facts correctly when he wrote his notes. In the end the viewer learns that even Leonard can make himself believe something to be true, even though he knew it was false.

Memento is a highly original, well-delivered movie. The acting is superb, the music is atmospheric, the dialog is thought-provoking, and the story-line, while simple in retrospect, is presented in a highly complex manner. After seeing it half-a-dozen times, it has become one of my favorite films.