Leonard Shelby suffers from the rarest of conditions, Anterograde Amnesia. He can no longer form memories. He forgets things and people as soon as they have passed from his immediate consciousness. Leonard insists he does not have total amnesia. He remembers that he was an insurance investigator in San Francisco with a home and a loving wife. He remembers all that was shattered one night when two men broke into his house. He was fast asleep and he didn't hear them, but his wife did.

Memento turns Leonard Shelby into a surrogate for the viewer, its backward narrative logic forcing us to embark on the kind of investigative work Leonard is engaged in. In most mysteries, you're dying to know what happens next. In this one, you can hardly wait for the beginning. The way the plot goes in reverse has you wondering what already happened instead of what is going to happen.

In fact, the more we see of Leonard, the more we learn about his life, the more the film's tension and suspense become close to unbearable as we understand the potential that exists to play with his mind. If you miss even a few minutes of this movie you'll be more confused than poor Leonard, who can never be certain what is truth and what is manipulation. Even when the film comes to an end, there are enough loose ends to demand an in-depth discussion or even a second viewing.

Memento opens with a scene in color that shows Leonard looking at a just developed Polaroid picture of a dead body. Suddenly, the photo starts to undevelop and goes back into the camera, the bullet goes back into Leonard’s gun and the victim is alive and talking. This scene slowly reveals the plot line backwards from the lifeless body on

Some topics in this essay:
Christopher Nolan, Leonard Shelby, San Francisco, Anterograde Amnesia, Caught Leonard, Christopher Nolan’s, MEMENTO Memento, christopher nolan, narrative structure, color scenes, nolan’s nontraditional narrative, nontraditional narrative, nolan’s nontraditional, information leonard, black-and-white scenes, nontraditional narrative structure, leonard shelby,