Class Summary February 19, 2009

The Movie Memento

Carly Cooper

Today in class we watched a movie called memento, we have not yet finished the movie but we have moved very far in the plot line. The movie is the story of a man with anterograde amnesia, meaning he is unable to form new memories however remembers many things from before a certain incident took place. This man is trying to find and kill the man who raped and murdered his wife, the way he does this without being able to remember is by tattooing his body and leaving himself notes, he has learned his own handwriting and only trusts himself. The movie is created with two parts, one is what is happening and one is leading up to what is happening and explains the reasoning and the way things fit together. As the plot progresses we can attach more and more pieces of the story.
This man, named Lenard, has the help of a woman, Natalie, who seemingly complicates his plan to kill this man and get out of town. He helps her with the problems left to her by her drug dealing boyfriend while she helps him find out more information to connect the pieces of the puzzle and try to find the man who killed his wife. When he does finally find this man it is a man who is pretending to be a friend to Lenard while really trying to convince him to leave town without killing the man who killed his wife because, of course, that man would be him.
We stopped the movie at the point where Lenard uncovers a tattoo which says never answer the phone while he is speaking on the phone, it seems that since he is unable to remember people he often gives information over the phone because he doesn’t really know who is on the other end of the line. Another important aspect of the movie is that while it is often moving backwards to explain certain things that are happening, there are also many forward flashes of things that seem to be coming and maybe they are flash backs of things that have already happened. One of these is a reoccurring view of what seems to be part of Lenard’s memory of the night his wife was raped and murdered.
While I have left out some details, above is a plot summary of the movie up to the point we have stopped. This movie is made in a very interesting way and I can see how, not its contents, but its form is related to House of Leaves. As in the book the movie makes the audience feel the same way the character feels, by confusing the audience with unknown information it makes the audience feel as if they too have this condition. I think that looking at this movie helps to explain why the book was written the way it was and how it really does captivate and keep the reader interested.