Reflection of the sequence of events in “Memento”

In Memento, the story is actually told backwards. It beginning with what would have been the ending scene to a story told in chronological order. We learn that the main character, Leonard, has short term memory. The way that the sequence of events are put together could be like the recollection of memories, Leonard’s memories. The only consistency between scenes is a black and white sequence that is cut between each new memory, and after each cut it continues where it was left off unlike the rest of the scenes that are played in reverse order. The way that the sequence of events was very clever and gave the movie a very interesting perspective, still relevant to the movie’s plot (Leonard’s memory). It allows the audience to put together all of Leonard’s memories themselves and figure out what really happened to him to which the character would not have remembered. The audience could somewhat have been seen as a detective because they are taking all of the information that the movie is giving them and using their memory to piece the real story and sequence of events together. The black and white memory is the final piece of the puzzle and it was smart to also have parts of them in different scenes of the movie so once that part was finished at the end (symbolized by the coloration after Leonard takes the photo of the body) hopefully the audience was finally able to make sense of the scenes that were shown earlier in the movie. The audience’s memory was an important aspect for this movie to make sense, just as Leonard’s memory was to understand his story.

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