Memento Musings

If you haven’t watched Memento yet, I ask you to go watch it as soon as you can and return to this blog post after you’ve seen it.

Because I can’t talk much about this movie without spoiling it for you.

What is it about, you might ask. Well, put it simply, it’s about this guy who has backwards amnesia. He can’t create new memories since his accident. If you’ll talk to him, few minutes after, he’ll forget who you are or what you’re talking about, or what he just did. He knows who he is, he remembers what his life was, but only up to the point before his accident.

How can a person live a life like this? Well, watch the movie and see.

 Part of the brilliance of this movie is how it is shown in backward linearity. So yes the last scene is at the start. It’s like being Leonard himself. We don’t have any idea what he just did so we form our own conclusion just based on what’s really currently happening. And then in the end we’ll understand what actually happened. I want you to experience it this way. So if you haven’t watched it yet, GO AWAY AND WATCH IT.

Now, I’m going to write down my thoughts about the movie. So, SPOILER ALERT.

Preying on the weak

It is horrible how some people (Natalie, Burt, Teddy) take advantage someone with this condition. Yes, what’s new? We see lots of people do this, not just to those with the rare case of backward amnesia, but even to some with other kind of condition or just those who look weak. People who take advantage of someone else’s weakness –I  don’t see why we can’t reclassify such people as anything but human.

In the end

In the end we can see how Leonard can’t just actually deal with the truth. And it’s disappointing how he set himself up to kill Teddy, the very person who helped him find the rapist he’s looking for.

We also saw that’s there’s the shot in which he already has the tattoo “I’VE DONE IT” but later on he doesn’t have that anymore so we can safely surmise that he removed it. But why? I guess his thirst for looking for revenge wasn’t quenched by actually killing the guy. So he made himself forget that he already did that. He doesn’t want to let go. He thinks his only purpose in life is to keep on playing detective and finding a John G.

On The Movie

Objectively speaking though, this movie by Christopher Nolan (Yes, that Nolan who made Inception, The Prestige and Batman) is brilliant. It makes you think. It makes you wonder. And after watching it, your mind will beg you to watch it again. This time, backwards.