Memento, written and directed by Christopher Nolan, uses unconventional narrative and filmic techniques to explore the disoriented mind of its main character.

Rating: 7/10 (6 July 2001)

Trying to save his wife as she is brutally attacked by a stranger, Leonard Shelby (Guy Pierce: L.A. Confidential) receives a violent blow on the head and experiences brain damage. The trauma results in anterograde memory-loss, a rare disorder defined by the inability to form new memories. An insurance investigator who once trusted his perceptions in order to distinguish between people's false and legitimate claims, Leonard must now cope with a condition that challenges his ability to perceive reality, and which presses him to trust others. Nevertheless, Leonard is driven by a commitment to capture his wife's murderer, for the last memory he does retain recalls the traumatic incident. Relying entirely on written notes, Polaroid snapshots, and tattoos, which tell him --rather than remind him-- what car he drives, what motel he is staying in, what his new confidant "Natalie" (Carrie-Anne Moss: The Matrix; Chocolat) looks like, and how to find "Teddy" (Joe Pantoliano: The Matrix), his wife's killer, Leonard's fate is determined by
his written data.
Memento clearly establishes the main character's point of view by narrating events as the character perceives them. This is achieved by focusing on the atemporal quality of his experience as he reencounters characters and situations without knowledge --or memory-- of a prior encounter. (That is, since Leonard interprets every encounter as a new one, the viewer often cannot distinguish between a genuinely new encounter and one which the protagonist simply sees as new.) Technically, Memento relies on editing techniques that disorient the viewer with undefinable patterns of flashback and flashforward images. Although often marked by tedious repetition of key scenes, the circular nature of the narration stresses the character's condition and establishes that a lack of memory may result in his inability to apply moral judgment. This raises valuable questions with regards to the role memory plays in the concepts of revenge, motivation and regret. All in all, Memento deconstructs natural perceptions of reality (and entertains new ones) by successfully manipulating its filmatic elements, and by offering a suspenseful story which evolves as a result of its protagonist's abnormal cognitive processes.