How do audiences decode the narrative of Memento?

How do audiences decode the narrative of Memento? A.Mitcheson

The decoding process is a method in which audiences of any kind of media material breaks it down and eventually understands to what it is. An easy example of a decoding process would be to look at a simple narrative which is found mostly in fairy tales; these are the easiest as they have been designed for children and are not complex and contain no real hard understanding. Yet our subject film is very different from a fairy tale in a lot of respects yet the most obvious would be the use of time and the order of the story, which is completely in reverse going from the end towards the beginning and not chronological at all.

Todorov’s theory is particularly relevant here as the story itself does show strong signs of the three areas and their boundaries. Although this process is running backwards you are not greatly thrown as it is the same backwards as it is forwards it is the story itself that seems to give the film it’s edge.

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Barthes idea that a text is a tangled ball of threads can potentially be said to be true for Momento; the unraveling helps describe the difficulty to which the audience needs to “work” to understand the plot. I believe for this particular text it can be described as being “open” the reason I say this is because the film does attempt to convey different meanings with it be with characters whose motives do not seem clear or by the conclusion (which happens to be our beginning). Action codes help give our story predictability; which allows our audience to become more sophisticated and more likely to anticipate what is going to happen, this in turn gives a creation of tension particularly if it involves some kind of bodily harm or death. This happens immediately in the opening sequence of the film. Enigma codes are strive and very important to “Momento” every scene has them and it is only in the next scene backwards or perhaps the one after that we recognize and find out the answer to a quandary we perhaps had for the story.

Characters and the roles they play are covered by the theorist Propp who contested there are only a certain number of characters that pop up in the majority of narratives. Propp’s list of character types are not all present, although in our film the cast do fill roles described by Propp. Our perspective of characters intentions and motives are changing throughout; an example is Teddy who we firstly see as a victim, then we have the impression that he is actually a killer and that his murder was justified, only to find that our first thoughts were true and he is completely a victim.

Mr. Levi Strauss theory on binary oppositions can be seen within this film; the most obvious one being vulnerability/ strength. Our main character is very vulnerable because of his condition and this has him abused by those he takes for friends and leaves him very puzzled sometimes. The makers highlight our understanding of his condition here and this method is an attempt to show the audience the severity of his problem. It is otherwise difficult to find any others and if there were I don’t believe they would help us understand this film it is simply the plot that leaves you lost and with gaps in the story.

Polaroid pictures is what the leading character uses to remind himself of everything important to himself these momentos are the only way he can work as a human and give us the indication that he is resourceful and well equipped to handle his memory loss. His expensive car also tells us more of the main and character and more specifically his wealth; the fact that the car is always filthy gives an indication of laziness too. The objects within each short scene is the key to the next and in order for you to understand the sequence of events you must watch intently and make sure you catch all of these symbolic codes.

This film in my view is very unique in respect to its backward time running. Although it does make it different it does not make it a good film a good film in my view is a film that provokes emotion in the audience the bigger or stronger the emotion/s the better the film; for me this was not the case for Momento. The plot is complicated yet not totally impossible to work with, perhaps the reason for my dislike of the film is because I had watched segments of it at a time and also that I missed the concluding part. In all Memento is no big Hollywood big seller simply a quirky chronologically challenged movie that attempts something radical and does it ok, the lack of big names involved does not help it’s case.

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