Profile of Memory

Rating: 9/10 (21 May 2003)

Contains Spoiler To me, this movie is not so much a story of an amnesiac as an age old attempt to de-construct what is a human. After Leonard hit Natalie and tried to record it, he kept telling himself, "focus, focus" as if the human will can somehow overcome the physical reality that coldly dictate who we are.
Yet the movie didn't spiral down the drain of self-pity or fatalistism. It balanced out the dark reality by euphemizing what humans do when facing insurmountable reality: self-deceit. Just as one marvels at Leonard's fanatic and spartan life of holding on to truth and reality, the mysterious picture of a happy Leonard and the unverifiable "confessions" by Teddy before his execution, left open the possibility that Leonard lived in a reality consisted not only the notes and tattoos but also how he liked to believe.