Memento

As part of our research and understanding of storytelling, we watched the film Memento as a group. A feature film, directed by Christopher Nolan (2000) and starring Guy Pearce who plays the main character Leonard. The film is a sequence of events in reverse order so that we see the ending right at the beginning and work our way back to see how the events leading up to it resulted in the final outcome. The film begins by showing us that Leonard's wife has been murdered by someone unknown to him,  he then attempts to track them down in order to avenge her. However, he faces a huge problem as he has severe short term memory loss due to a previous accident which means that he has to undertake vigorous and ongoing rituals including tattooing reminders onto his skin to enable him to remember each daily task. The film goes on, back in time, revealing each clue at a time so he can find the person who killed his wife. Throughout, there are short scenes where Leonard talks on the phone to someone called Sammy Jankis, who seemingly also suffers from short term memory loss. There is a twist at the end where we, as an audience are unsure as to who Sammy Jankis really is and even suspect that Leonard is in fact him, however, this is never announced which creates a real sense of mystery and suspense.

I found the film rather confusing because of the switches in time frame and the order which made it feel quite perplexing and difficult to follow, however, it kept me guessing all the way through as I longed to find out who Sammy Jankis was and what connection he had to Leonard. Even though the storyline seems incredibly complex because of the switches in time and use of telling the story in reverse order, if you reverted this, turning the film to chronological order, it seems much simpler. The use of flashbacks and phone calls to the mysterious Sammy Jankis are what complicate it and generate confusion which I think is clever and creative but also quite disorientating making it seem much harder to follow than it should while still  creating an enormous sense of suspension and longing to understand what is happening.

In terms of how the film influenced me, I would say that I thought the way Nolan has used a relatively straightforward storyline and made it seem very complex with plenty of twists was very interesting and well done. I thought the character of Leonard was quite likeable which allowed me to root for him as the hero even though what he was setting out to do was quite vengeful. Nolan also made the supporting characters seem like they were helping him throughout the film, however, every now and again, they would do something to make you doubt their intention. I thought this was a very good use of character, making me as an audience member support Leonard even more. I also thought that the reverse order of events was very interesting because it gave the audience something to solve and be puzzled about, therefore engaging me as a viewer and making me want to find out what lead Leonard to do certain actions. The reverse order is something I would like to consider for future work particularly as a creative tool to create tension aswell as to make a storyline seem much more entangled and full of hints and twists.