Who Do You Think You Are
by: Dejah Harley and Tamatha Lancaster
Memento was directed and written by Christopher Nolan. It was based on a short story “Memento Mori” written by his younger brother Jonathan Nolan. The story follows a character, Guy Pierce, known as Leonard in the film, chronologically and in reverse. This movie is in the category of psychological thrillers. Memento keeps audiences on the edges of their seats the entire time via the storyline, motifs, and purposeful camera work.
The first thing you see is a polaroid photograph that seems to fade away every time the person holding it shakes it. Then you realize that the movie is going in reverse. Normally when you shake a polaroid picture, it develops but in this case Leonard is shaking the picture and it gets more and more blurry while turning red which is how a polaroid picture starts out. The first thing you think is, who are these characters and how are they related in anyway. A few minutes in the movie you find out that our main character has a condition where he remember things, only the events that happened before his accident. The storyline is portrayed the the elements of colored scenes and black and white scenes. Throughout the film it switches from color to black and white. The scenes that are in color is telling the story of what happens to the main character backwards as the black and white scenes tell the story forward. When you first watch the movie, you don’t realize that the two stories emerges but it does. This emerge happens when, SPOILER ALERT, the main character, Leonard, goes to an abandon building and kills a man known as Jimmy. Leonard takes a picture of Jimmy’s dead body and shakes the polaroid pictures. As he shakes it the picture comes into color as well as the entire scene. The way the story is scene, allows the viewer to connect to with the character while also trying to figure out what in the world is happening. The storylines going on throughout the entire film all fit together beautifully in the end and contribute well to the experience.
Some motifs in the film are polaroid pictures, tattoos, black and white scenes, but one that really stands out is the voiceovers in the film. As said earlier the movie switches to color to black and white; all the parts shown in black and white tell his story chronologically of what happened after he lost his memory. All the other scenes, in color, show his life in reverse from when he was going to kill the person who he thinks murdered and raped his wife. Leonard doesn’t have many memories that he can use to remember things in his day to day life. He uses those polaroid pictures to help him remember. He sometimes writes things on the back of the pictures about a person or area that may be key information. Similar to that, he has tattoos around his body. One goes along his chest and is written backwards. It says “John G murdered and raped your wife”. It is written backwards so that he can see it in the mirror. Although he has these two things to help him remember, his short term memory is still so bad that he struggles just looking for things and trying to get everything together before he leaves his house. Whenever he is in a panic the sound is the film goes mute and you can only hear his voice over. Sometimes the voiceovers are calm while others can be very sad and reflective on his life. These voiceovers are known to happen right before a serious scene or when the tone of the film is about to change. The changing tones in the film help to ensure that you are never bored.
During the movie, the camera is always moving and there aren't shots that stay on the screen for too long. It keeps you wanting to look at the screen because you could miss something real quick. The camera during some scenes are shaky and this makes it so that your mind if forced to focus and try to get some underlying text or messages from the film. The camera work is also different for specific characters. For Natalie the camera is always either shaky or panning around her. The panning scenes normally foreshadow for some action or conflict arising and she is the character always bringing that to the table. With her, you can always count on something exciting to happen. Also, when there is a panning scene with Natalie there is always a shaky scene to follow. It is always as if she switches things up.
The way the story is portrayed and the camera moves, makes you feel as though you’re suppose to have sympathy for Leonard. As you follow Leonard on his journeys, you get to see the characters he interact with true colors only except Leonard doesn’t see it because of his condition. In the black and white scenes, it’s like you’re eavesdropping into Leonard’s conversations on the phone. The camera is either extremely close to Leonard or just close, making it seem like you’re in his personal space. And the color scenes is like you’re following Leonard around seeing and understanding everything he can’t. You first see Natalie’s true colors when her and Leonard had an argument and he hits her. Knowing that Leonard isn’t going to remember what happened, she goes out and wait in the car for a few minutes and come back in, making it seem like someone else was after her.
This film definitely is a psychological thriller. All elements seen in the film mold together so well and make this film what it is. It’s definitely not a typical film that you can watch while trying to do some other things. You really have to focus and pay attention to get a lot of things out of the film. However, when you’re watching it you don’t even realize how focused you are on it because it is so captivating. Then after watching it, you won’t be able to help talking about it to your friends and thinking about how your brain works for days after.
The way the story is portrayed and the camera moves, makes you feel as though you’re suppose to have sympathy for Leonard. As you follow Leonard on his journeys, you get to see the characters he interact with true colors only except Leonard doesn’t see it because of his condition. In the black and white scenes, it’s like you’re eavesdropping into Leonard’s conversations on the phone. The camera is either extremely close to Leonard or just close, making it seem like you’re in his personal space. And the color scenes is like you’re following Leonard around seeing and understanding everything he can’t. You first see Natalie’s true colors when her and Leonard had an argument and he hits her. Knowing that Leonard isn’t going to remember what happened, she goes out and wait in the car for a few minutes and come back in, making it seem like someone else was after her.
This film definitely is a psychological thriller. All elements seen in the film mold together so well and make this film what it is. It’s definitely not a typical film that you can watch while trying to do some other things. You really have to focus and pay attention to get a lot of things out of the film. However, when you’re watching it you don’t even realize how focused you are on it because it is so captivating. Then after watching it, you won’t be able to help talking about it to your friends and thinking about how your brain works for days after.