*WARNING, SPOILERS* symbols in Memento

Rating: Null/10 (7 August 2002)

** WARNING, THERE ARE SPOILERS IN HERE**
I thought this movie was brilliant. Like many other viewers, I'd say a person would need to watch it carefully several times to get the most out of it.
After reading several viewer comments, I noticed that nobody seems to understand that the plot is a parable of soul struggle and ascension. So I'm going to put forth a few ideas I've had about what some of the details in this film mean. Perhaps other fans of this film will benefit from them in some way.
The scenes that are in black in white are those that occurred after the wife's murder but before Teddy's murder. It's a "dark night of the soul" kind of setting. The scenes in color are those that occurred after Teddy's murder. These latter scenes represent Leonard's ability to remember the love his wife felt for him and, ultimately, his ability to love. The murder completely flattened and destroyed Leonard's emotional life; he has lost his primary object and his reason for living. I believe the wife is a symbol for Leonard's ability to love and live like a human being: the female side of his personality. In order to gain access to that lost part of himself, he is absolutely driven to avenge the murder. Leonard's desire to resolve the conflict and kill the murderer is the only reason he finds to stay alive. If I had no ability to recall anything truly good and present in the world since a devastating trauma, I might think along his lines, too! What a courageous character!!
Leonard knows that he must relinquish memories of his wife while working toward stopping her killer. He burns her personal effects and in tiny flashing glimpses is able to relive her memory and the extreme and constant pain her loss brought about. It's not sentimental though. It's motivational. Leonard brings his life and ego to the point of extreme thinness in order to end the loss and end the cycle of abuse. Leonard lost a great deal (a lot is to be inferred from this movie about how huge an investment marriage often is made to be in modern life) and needs to give up even what little is left to him voluntarily. He knows that and gradually does. Even though other characters see Leonard as a retard, he's the most brilliant character in this film -- and I'd say in many if not most films of the recent past. He is unable to let go of his resentment, so he does everything he can to follow it toward its end. Because of the damage that was done to his ability to recall and think, it's his only choice. We in real life are given a choice to let go of our rage, but he cannot. Instead, he understands that he needs to completely let go of the memory of his wife in order to get it, and all the vital things in himself associated with it, back. That's pretty wise and brave! Those very brief glimpses of past memory ended up redeeming Leonard later in the story. Because Leonard was willing to let go of the memory, he was able to RECEIVE a memory that was real: Teddy tries to trick Leonard into believing that it was his wife, not Mrs. Jankis, who had diabetes and thus trick Leonard into thinking he is someone other than who he is (not a good person). Leonard remembered that this was not the case and thus was able to find out that Teddy had been misleading him into a life of unknowingly commiting repetitive murders, and that it was Teddy's fault not his own.
The name Teddy reminds me of a teddy BEAR. Bears are symbolic of egos in hibernation or an unawakened state, living by the power of negative force rather than love. Teddy's values are certainly to be questioned; drug trade, murder, and use of an innocent person to carry out one's dirty work are certainly not productive uses of life. The character Teddy is extremely clever, but it's a heartless and cruel kind of intellect -- also his sleazy operandi is kept secret; only his victim (barely) knows what he is doing until Natalie comes into the picture. The name Leonard symbolizes another side of the intellect, the lion: still brutal intellect but driven by love, even if it is only a memory of love. Notice that Leonard is in peak physical condition and that his actions are fueled by a very intense desire to "get his life back." He is doing everything he can to compensate for his memory loss, an extreme handicap.
The greatest question for me in the film is whether or not Leonard's action was correct. In terms of its being a film rather than real life, I'd say yes. He stated his intentions during the scene when he knew he was lying to himself about who the killer was, and after it happened he said that he was "just trying to make things all right." In real life, one can't murder another person, but I believe the murder in this film was really a symbol of totally getting oneself together in the face of extreme disadvantages in an activity designed to wrench back control of a person's vitality that had been stolen from another person. Teddy is literally controlling what little life Leonard has left to him, and Leonard did the right thing by freeing himself against all odds from the manipulative and power-hungry actions of this terrible man. That the director thinks so to is denoted by the fact that color, peaceful memories of his wife, and hope come back to Leonard's vision once he has completed this near-impossible task. What Leonard does with the life he has given back to himself is a question beyond the scope of the film. Will Leonard go on and start over a good life? With the intelligence he has acquired, it could go either way, but I got a huge sense of hope from the film.
The incidents with Jimmy the drug dealer were the weirdest for me. The scene of the murders has large tanks with spiral ladders nearby. I consider this whole chain of events reminiscent of soul ascension through battle and possession (i.e., non-hermetic but through personal competition). Leonard murders Jimmy and literally takes over his life and body -- and even Jimmy's wife. He wears his clothes and drives his car, discarding his own. He now has the mind of a killer. The brand of car is Jaguar, which is an animal of the unconscious. Teddy envies Leonard's "new" car and tries to trick him out of driving it. I don't clearly recall but I believe Teddy drove a battered Ford, symbolizing the crossing over into the unconscious.
Natalie is nothing like Leonard's dead wife. But even though she misuses Leonard, she's doing so in order to avenge her own spousal tragedy. She is intelligent enough to understand that Teddy was the real murderer even though Leonard was the agent. She, not Leonard, is the first person to discover the sick life that Teddy is leading, and she uses that knowledge properly by sharing it with Leonard in one of the few ways that Leonard can understand, pretty ingenius. She is skillful in turning Teddy's game against him. Even though she can be considered evil, I was reminded here that it's all relative. She ended up helping Leonard in the long run even though she had to brutalize and confuse him into committing another murder in the short term. She gave Leonard the missing piece of information that enabled him to end the horrible repetition of violence, Teddy's drivers license.
Throughout the film Leonard is misused by shady characters, and that's to be expected in this modern and overmasculinized world, which is symbolized in the film by the Las Vegas desert and it's "discount" businesses. Leonard keeps telling people to call him by his real name rather than "Lenny," which is a nickname his wife used for him. He shared real and consensual intimacy and love with his wife. The intimacy he shares with other characters is because of the neurological trauma and nonconsensual, and what he experiences in their presence is fear rather than love. He is extremely vulnerable, he knows it, and Nolan does a terrific job of conveying the paranoia that Leonard must have experienced at every (waking) moment. I think Leonard does a terrific job of handling that fear effectively and finally ending it. The name "Leonard" called to my mind the retard in that John Steinbeck story OF MICE AND MEN. Leonard really is something of an idiot to the "regular" people in this film, but he eventually acquires far more power than any of them. I believe he earns it well and well in ways that none of the "regular" characters possibly could because they're neither challenged nor called to task for their misuse of power. As Leonard says to Jimmy in that first fabulously tense confrontation scene at the sight of the murders, he's not interested in the (huge amounts of) money (potential power); what he wants is his life back and nothing else. As Leonard says to himself after the second fabulously tense confrontation scene at the sight of the murders (this time with Teddy), he is justified in making a murderous lie since that lie will end the killing and the inability to live well.
Memento is a fictional story about very real energy flows. Even though literally speaking the film is about murder and a rare physiological condition and drug trade, it is symbolically about psychic battle, the memory loss associated with spiritual ascension gone awry, and empowerment/disempowerment. Ultimately it's about satanic possession of others and divine self-possession. And also about how self-trust, instinct, and intellect these days are more vital than ever because one can no longer automatically trust one's friends and "helpers." I (obviously) was very taken by this work of art. The structure of the film was absolutely exquisite.
Just thought I'd share those ideas. Memento was one of the most thought-provoking films I've ever seen. (Insomnia was okay but not nearly as good -- and the similar soundtrack drove me up the wall!)