A polaroid photo in a bloodied mysterious place. It gets faint as the anonymous hands shake the photo. Memento starts with this backward scene. As the movie reveals in its title, it is an interesting story about memory. Memory is continuous, and the succession of memory builds one’s ego and self-awareness. Losing one’s memory leads to forgetting oneself. “A disease eats away at the soul.” A famous expression that modifies Alzheimer’s disease supports this well. Leonard, the main character, suffers from short-term memory loss and cannot remember a new occurrence. Different from Alzheimer’s disease, Leonard has full memory before his wife’s death.

  Leonard, the man living in the past with a straight mind, tries to find the murderer and revenge. He cannot believe or even remember the new people he met after his wife’s death. He only trusts his handwritten tattoos and notes. This scene reminded me of the novel “The Professor and His Beloved Equation.” The professor in this novel puts notes all over his body to remember his daily life. Like the professor, Leonard kept notes and tattoos on his body and in habitual places. These notes guide him in deciding on the strangers he might have already met several times. His notes are unkind and run out of space although he endeavors to maintain his memories. Except for himself, there is no one he can fully trust with scarce information. 

  Like Leonard, we also suspect all of the secondary characters while watching the movie. Christopher Nolan, the director of this movie invites us into this suspicious scene with a non-linear narrative. The repetition of chronological and reversed scenes lets the audience feel Leonard’s confusion. The director deliberately uses black and white to differentiate reversed scenes from colored chronological scenes. In the end, these two separate scenes meet and maximize the shock of the ending. Its complicated narrative method is more valuable when it is viewed repeatedly. In the first viewing, the audience can deeply sympathize with Leonard’s confusion; yet in the second viewing, the audience can focus on unconventional directing methods.

  Let’s take a look at interesting material as well as plots. Leonard’s memory loss could be diagnosed as anterograde amnesia. Anterograde amnesia is a memory loss that cannot form new memories after a traumatic incident. In the case of Leonard, the robbery and murder of his wife triggered his memory loss. Another famous film about anterograde amnesia is  “Finding Nemo.” Dory, the fish that forgets what he tried to do in 10 seconds, loses his memory in a shorter cycle than Leonard. How about focusing on the characters who have memory loss in these two well-known movies? 

  Memento is an old movie released in 2001; however, its absorbing story is still attractive in 2024. The first view can be a little tough, but Nolan’s plot brings us quickly into the story. Memento makes us wonder about the trait of memory. “Can we say memory is a reliable thing?” Not only in Leonard’s case but also, we can easily experience distortion of memory. This question runs through the whole work. Also, it warns us of the danger of blind faith. Leonard did not doubt his behavior since it was derived from his ego, and his ego was based on his memory. So, though he is guilty, we can empathize with him. In his world, it would be a very natural thing to do – to deceive oneself to that last. How about having an exciting time watching Memento before summer is over?