Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Memento: Something that serves to warn or remind -- souvenir.

Did you remember that a memento is a warning? Did you forget that? Did you ever know?

When William Wordsworth described his poetry as "strong emotion recollected in tranquility," he expressed the central drive of Western Art known as Romanticism for nearly the next two hundred years. Commercialism, World Wars and scientific determinism darkened our view of Romanticism, gradually vitiated its power in our various art forms, made us forget. The movement was replaced by deteriorating sentimentality, then existentialism, post-modernism and in the last twenty years, deconstructionism.

[Update: 4/24/01 -- For critical readers who insist on absolute truth, or abhor fanciful interpretations ("which may spoil the movie for others"), I warn you, I am going to be an "unreliable narrator." There is no absolute truth in this movie, no one reliable interpretation. Given a puzzle with several extra pieces, I believe my take is as good as any other, but when you see the movie, you will be forced to make up your own reality for it. That is a prime original strengh of MEMENTO.]

Where . . . was . . . I?

Oh, yes --

For what if Wordsworth is passe? What if there is no strong emotion? What if there is no recollection? What if there is no tranquility?

That philosophical conundrum, I believe, is what new British Writer/Director Christopher Nolan had in mind when he adapted a story of his brother, Jonathan Nolan, into the fragmented, out of synch "thriller" entitled MEMENTO. Nolan (FOLLOWING, 2000; INSOMNIA, soon to be released) sounds like a devotee of classic Modern Novelist Henry Green (Back, Loving, etc).

One night, Lenny ("I hate that name") Shelby (Guy Pierce), a former insurance investigator, murdered his wife (Jorja Fox) and his drug dealer in a dispute over her and the narcotics money. Lenny himself sustained a head injury, which damaged his hippocampus, after which he was not able to retain short term memories.

From that point, he was unable to remember for longer than a few moments what he had seen, said or thought shortly before. In order to rationalize what he had done, he invented a second man who he claimed had murdered his wife and the dealer. He connected these events hazily with a case he once investigated, involving Sammy Jankis (Stephen Tobolowsky), a man suffering dementia who eventually killed his own wife (Harriet Sansom Harris). In his confused, guilty mind, Lenny came to see himself as a hero tracking down his wife's murderer. In order to create a record, sustain his fantasy, and preserve a semblance of sanity, he began to photograph everything with an Instamatic Camera, to take notes on stray pieces of paper, to write on his body, to have his most important "findings" tattooed on his body. (e.g., "John G. raped and murdered my wife.")

Aided by "Teddy" (Joe Patoliano), a cop interested in the drug loot, the search led Lenny to a barmaid, Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss), who had long worked at a tavern where Lenny bought his drugs. She recognized his impairment, saw him as a mark whom she might manipulate in order to take over the local drug trade. By suggesting that Callum Keith Rennie's Dodd (or is it Todd? I can't remember) had beaten her up (something Lenny actually did) over the murder investigation, she persuaded Lenny to kidnap, beat and scare Dodd out of town.

Then, when Lenny has appropriated Dodd's clothes and car, she has him kill another drug dealer, Jimmy Grantz (Larry Holden). Is that jacket an Ungaro? Is the car really a Jaguar? Wasn't Teddy that . . . .

"Beg my wife's forgiveness before I blow your brains out!"

And there is the Blonde (Kimberly Campbell) in one of the motel rooms he occupies. She goes into the bathroom and . . . .

Is that what happened? I don't remember. I have a short term memory problem.

It doesn't matter. You can make up your own story.

The film begins with an instant photograph, wet, a smear of red, fading to black, returning to the camera, etc. The whole story is told after that, not literally backward but in takes which put us in Lenny's situation, and within his attention span, trying to figure out who he is, what has just happened, where he is going. All the way back to the "rabbit hole" where we began.

MEMENTO is a film about what we forget. What we choose to remember. It is a film about denial.

To forget what we must remember, to be unable to forget what we hate to remember, to lose control -- that is the ultimate horror, the true hell, which makes up Leonard "Lenny -- I hate that name" -- Shelby's condition.

The problem with MEMENTO -- despite the excellent Guy Pearce, wiry, handsome with a golden-frosted Sting haircut -- and granting the fine supporting cast, Wally Pfister's LA motel-culture photography, Dody Dorn's slam bam editing -- the problem is that Shelby's situation never becomes our own, as Christopher Nolan clearly wanted it to be.

Orson Welles, late in his life, agreed with his early critics that "rosebud" in CITIZEN KANE was a "gimmick." Without the rich everyman quality Welles added to the plot device and the film's schema, CITIZEN KANE would have been only an intriguing puzzle. By design or by accident, or by a combination of both, he imbued Charles Foster Kane's existential life with a deep humanity and profound mystery we all may still share in.

Leonard Shelby is just a series of reactions. Alienated from himself, everyone he encounters victimizes him but the demented Sammy Jankis and wife of memory, who are trapped in a like condition. The spark of his subconscious monochrome identification with the tragic Mr. and Mrs. Jankis never crosses the splice, the synapse, to his equally monochrome motel phone search in order to set on fire his colorful, continuous present.

Lenny has no soul or, (to put it another way) like some clone, a severely impaired one).

In this failing, MEMENTO resembles Alain Robbe-Grillet's LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD (Renais, 1961), and more recently, Kenneth Brannagh's DEAD AGAIN (1991), Bryan Singer's USUAL SUSPECTS (1995), Darren Aronofsky's first film PI (1998), and some of Quentin Tarantino's works. It is a nice piece of cinema magic, lacking in the modern French fashion a logical premise, which challenges us intellectually as we watch it, keeps us busy mentally with its twists, but leaves us with a vague emptiness, emotionally unsatisfied.

Still, Aronofsky at least went on to make last year's superb REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, and Christopher Nolan may go beyond promise to show a similar maturity in future years. He obviously has a talent which may grow.

Let us hope that is so. We need new directors who can illuminate our human condition, now drowning in the current political drift and commercial madness.

MEMENTO: a warning. Do we Americans always suffer from Anterograd Amnesia? After you see this film, you may try to remember the answer.

What was I saying?

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older