Narrative Techniques In Memento

Done by Joshua nagenthiram
Memento is a psychological thriller directed by Christopher Nolan where we see the film through the perspective of the main character Leonard Shelby. Leonard has short term memory and only remembers certain glimpses of his past. The way this film is shot is through Leonard’s point of view where you see how his short term memory effects him with grasping things together and most of the time we’re just confused as he is. The film is shot backwards and is like a puzzle where we have to scenes together to make sense of things, as the scenes go on we start to figure Leonard out. The last 16 minutes is where the plot unfolds, this is where we see Leonard 's journey to find his wife 's killer “John G”. We have a sense of the narrative throughout the film but it changes in the end of the film. Since the film was shot backwards, the narrative in …show more content…
I think the narrative of the audience thinks of the whole time was that Leonard wants to avenge his wife’s killer, the narrative changes however when Leonard realizes Sammy isn’t the real killer and that Teddy is taking advantage of him (when Teddy tells him that his memories are distorted and that he’s been having Leonard kill people for him). This is evident when he throws Teddy’s keys away, uses Natalie’s ex-boyfriend’s possessions (car, clothes and money) and when he sits in his car pondering the fact that Teddy is right that he does lie to himself to keep him happy. As Leonard realizes his memories are distorted, the black and white scenes were Leonards perception to make sense of his reality, the narrative changes to the fact that reality is what our perception of reality