The visuality of the film creates a sense of uncertainty for both Leonard and the audience. The main narrative in the film is shown backwards in vibrant colour. Not only is the inversion of the narrative progression symbolic of Leonard’s preoccupation with the past and his struggles with it, it also serves to place the audience’s preconception of reality and therefore truth on the back foot opening our minds to different angles.
The colour sequences depict Leonard, confused on his mission to avenge his wife’s death, illuminating his problem with memory. The truth is not certain for Leonard when out on the streets. Not only must he decide whether his information is accurate but he is also wary of the other characters around him and their motives.
In between each scene, a black and white scene depicts Leonard sitting in his hotel room sorting through police documents, and speaking on the phone. The director uses the colour/black and white sequences to represent Leonard’s reality and truth. This is the time where Leonard is safe in his constructed perception of truth.
The body is another important theme used to explore the truth. In our commercial and consumerist society, people are often judged by their appearance and status symbols. An individual’s truth and worth is often constructed through their body, the way they look. An interesting example of this human failing is in ‘The races of man’ by John Beddoe, Beddoe argued that there was a difference both physically and intellectually between those in Britain with protruding jaws and those with less prominent jaws. The Irish, Welsh and the lower classes were among those with protruding jaws, he argued, whereas all men of genius has less prominent jaws.
This human misjudgement of character through appearance is not accurate but prevalent as was the case with Leonard. Leonard is a normal good-looking man. However what lies’ beneath this exterior, is a psychopathic killer. In fact it is often discussed that most serial killers appear very normal often above average in features and/or charm. The characters in the film Teddy, and Natalie saw Leonard as a helpless man who could be easily controlled and manipulated. However they misjudged his character resulting in fatal consequences for Teddy as he was murdered by Leonard’s hand, ultimately leading to his demise.
The tattoos on Leonard’s body also symbolise truth in Leonard’s world, Leonard’s truth. He kept his most important information tattooed on his body. This symbolized the ultimate truth in Leonard’s world. This was the information that Leonard needed in order to find the man that raped and murdered his wife. However as the film progresses we learn how Leonard acquired this information which the audience understands is not the actually the truth, but it is the only truth for Leonard. Thus the body’s relationship with visuality and knowledge provides an interesting insight into Leonard’s truth, and the conflict with what the audience understands to be true thus illuminating the complexity of the notion of truth.
The knowledge that people take for granted, that of short-term memory, is unavailable to Leonard in the film. Therefore in his quest to find his wife’s murderer, every clue and new piece of information he finds must be quickly documented before it is erased from his mind. He must acquire and retain his knowledge in this unusual manner. However it is the audience’s perception of the truth and therefore the audiences’ knowledge that is most intriguing in this film.
Even after numerous viewings, reading and re-reading of the script and discussing the film in great depth, an objective, absolute truth is still not apparent. Every explanation and attempt at logical reasoning seems to involve some breach of the apparent "rules" of Leonard's disability -- not merely the rules as he explains them, but the rules as we witness them operating throughout most of the film.
The scene with Leonard and his wife in bed, which portrays the triumphant tattoo on his chest “I’ve done it”, cannot be a flashback. The audience has seen already that he didn’t have the tattoo, so he couldn’t have had it in the past. Another tattoo that is seen while lying in bed with his wife reading, “John G. raped and killed my wife” has to be a fantasy. Or is this conflict just another mechanism for Nolan to challenge our ideas and notions of what truth is? Scott Timberg writes: "Nolan, for his part, won't tell. When asked about the film's outcome, he goes on about ambiguity and subjectivity, but insists he knows the movie's Truth -- who's good, who's bad, who can be trusted and who can't -- and insists that close viewing will reveal all." Is it perhaps that the movies truth is that no one is purely good or bad, nothing is black and white and trust is relative? The audience must interpret the film personally and using various notions of knowledge produces a personal truth.
The film Memento offers an interesting yet ambiguous insight into the relationship between visuality, the body, and knowledge. This relationship is explored through truth, both Leonard’s reality and the audiences’ perception of the truth. The truth, as seen in this film is subjective and opens up the question of what is truth? Can truth be quantified and defined or is it too multifaceted? Memento challenges our notions of truth brilliantly through its post linear exploration of these questions that remain by their nature, unresolved and all the more captivating.
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, Practices of looking, ph 282.
New Times Los Angeles on March 15, 2000
