Christopher Nolan's Memento is a movie full of post-modern elements. It tells a story of a man who has a condition. New memories cannot be formed in his brain. Therefore, once he did something, he would soon forget what he had done. The post-modern elements get full interpretation in this movie-Lenny, the protagonist, was entrapped in a certain “truth” constructed by nobody but himself. The world outside his own mind and the world inside his mind have been mixed up, and he could do nothing but believe in his false memories and records, which are exactly “the untruth” to other people. I'd like to analyze the movie in the following perspectives- Firstly, we have to consider the function of images, signs and pictures in the movie.Are they the direct representations of the real? Can we believe what we see when we can't even remember who we are? Who shall we trust, then, in this case? Lenny had the habit of taking a picture whenever he had done something to remind himself what he had done and what he would do next. He assumed that the pictures he had taken can represent the 100% truth. However, he was quite wrong. Jean Baudrillard said in his critical essay The Demon of Images and The Precession of Simulacra- We have arrived at a paradox regarding the image, our images, those which unfurl upon and invade our daily life-images whose proliferation, it should be noted, is potentially infinite, whereas the extension of meaning is always limited precisely by its end, by its finality; from the fact that images ultimately have no finality and proceed by total contiguity,infinitely multiplying themselves according to an irresistible epidemic process which no one today can control, our world has become truly infinite, or rather exponential by means of images…We have thus come to the paradox that these images describe the equal impossibility of the real and of the imaginary. The problem is that Lenny had a false assumption at the very beginning. He assumed that John G was still at large and he must find him and kill him. He tattooed this important message on his chest. The tattoos and pictures consist a complicated system of images in which he found “the truth”. In the movie the policeman Teddy told Lenny- these words-”You don't want the truth. You make up your own truth, like your police file. You, you wander around, you're playing detective. You're living a dream, kid. A dead wife to pine for,a sense of purpose to your life...a romantic quest that you wouldn't end even if I wasn't in the picture." Teddy put it right. Lenny always refused to see the truth and kept living in his distorted, inconsistent memories. Somehow he found security in his made-up truth-he must take actions and seek vengeance upon John G. Even if he couldn't remember what he had done, he still considered his actions meaningful. In his lengthy monologue at the end of the movie he said, "I have to believe that my actions still have meaning. Even if I can't remember them. Can I just let myself forget what you've told me? Can I just let myself forget what you made me do? You think I just want another puzzle to solve? Another John G to look for? You're a John G. So you can be my John G. Do I lie to myself to be happy? In your case, Teddy... Yes ,I will." As we can see, Lenny found shelter in his self-delusion since it made him happy and content. Only in this way could he persuade himself that he was still seeking vengeance and doing justice for his lost wife. The question that whether Teddy was John G. no longer mattered to Lenny. It is his revenge that mattered, because it attached meaning to his life. In his words, “I'm just someone who wanted to make things right.” Lenny held that he was righting the wrong, thus engaging himself in the desperate, absurd, endless revenge. Lenny's case exactly proved Jean Baudrillard's theory of simulacra. There are mainly four phases of the image, according to Baudrillard- 1. It is the reflection of a basic reality 2 . It masks and perverts a basic reality 3. It masks the absence of a basic reality 4.It bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum. Lenny, the poor guy, took pictures which could only reflect a basic reality, for instance, Dodd was injured, Natalie could be his aid, or Teddy was the John G. he was looking for. The pictures were nothing but reflections of basic realities. And as he repetitively forced himself to take pictures, the pictures began to mask the absence of a basic reality. To a certain point, they bore no relation to any reality whatever: they are just their own pure simulacrum. Pictures multiplied but the truth was still hidden underneath. Therefore, those pictures made no sense at all in helping Lenny unravel the mystery contrived by himself. As Baudrillard put it, Hyperreality and the simulation take the place of the real,though it is clear also that the real-whatever it is-can no longer be experienced apart from images that coexist in our minds; you would have to live in a vacuum. Secondly, the concept of “language game” also appears in this movie . In Lenny's case, he has numerous tattoos on his body to remind himself of the “truth” that his wife had been raped and killed by a man named John G, that he shall not trust the policeman Teddy, and that he shall trust Natalie because she shares the same feelings with him. Lenny is obviously caught in a “language game”. In Jean-Francois Lyotard's essay The post modern condition: A Report on Knowledge, he mentioned the concept of “language games”- Wittgenstein, taking up the study of language again from scratch, focuses his attention on the effects of different modes of discourse;he calls the various types of utterances he identifies along the way (a few of which I have listed) language games. In this movie, there are different narrations from different people. Lenny only trusted Natalie because he thought she had also lost someone and therefore could help him take revenge. However, he was taken advantage by her to kill Dodd and was tricked and even insulted by her. He could not remember any of her insults to him. Whenever Teddy told him something against Natalie, he just ignored it because there was a sentence on the back of the picture of Teddy-"Do not believe his lies. Kill him." Lenny was caught in a language game invented by himself and he could hardly distinguish the real from the imaginary. He just believed in one version, one possibility of truth whereas the truth was quite opposite to what he believed. Finally,I think the movie also has some references to existentialism. Human life is full of toil and suffering, but it is our actions that define our identity, our very existence. Lenny is, to me, a poor guy who loved his wife too much that he killed again and again. He resembled Sisyphus in a way that he was taking endless revenge, just like Sisyphus who was punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity. Somehow Lenny found the meaning of his existence through taking revenge. And he no longer cared about the difference between truth and untruth. The world's still there. Where are we? Maybe we are just living a artificial world built by ourselves. Only our actions matter.Human life is full of toil and suffering, but it is our actions that define our identity, our very existence. Lenny is, to me, a poor guy who loved his wife too much that he killed again and again. He resembled Sisyphus in a way that he was taking endless revenge, just like Sisyphus who was punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity. Somehow Lenny found the meaning of his existence through taking revenge. And he no longer cared about the difference between truth and untruth. The world's still there. Where are we? Maybe we are just living a artificial world built by ourselves. Only our actions matter.Human life is full of toil and suffering, but it is our actions that define our identity, our very existence. Lenny is, to me, a poor guy who loved his wife too much that he killed again and again. He resembled Sisyphus in a way that he was taking endless revenge, just like Sisyphus who was punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity. Somehow Lenny found the meaning of his existence through taking revenge. And he no longer cared about the difference between truth and untruth. The world's still there. Where are we? Maybe we are just living a artificial world built by ourselves. Only our actions matter.a poor guy who loved his wife too much that he killed again and again. He resembled Sisyphus in a way that he was taking endless revenge, just like Sisyphus who was punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity. Somehow Lenny found the meaning of his existence through taking revenge. And he no longer cared about the difference between truth and untruth. The world's still there. Where are we? Maybe we are just living a artificial world built by ourselves. Only our actions matter.a poor guy who loved his wife too much that he killed again and again. He resembled Sisyphus in a way that he was taking endless revenge, just like Sisyphus who was punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity. Somehow Lenny found the meaning of his existence through taking revenge. And he no longer cared about the difference between truth and untruth. The world's still there. Where are we? Maybe we are just living a artificial world built by ourselves. Only our actions matter.Somehow Lenny found the meaning of his existence through taking revenge. And he no longer cared about the difference between truth and untruth. The world's still there. Where are we? Maybe we are just living a artificial world built by ourselves. Only our actions matter .Somehow Lenny found the meaning of his existence through taking revenge. And he no longer cared about the difference between truth and untruth. The world's still there. Where are we? Maybe we are just living a artificial world built by ourselves. Only our actions matter .
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