Let's End From The Beginning

Or should we say start from end?

We learn a lot about the narrative technique of Memento from its first scene. This scene acts as sort of a primer of how to watch the movie—because it's shown in reverse, it prepares us for the wild ride of Memento. The main sequences of the present story are interspersed with short cuts of a black and white Leonard in his motel room, working on a new tat and chatting on the phone about himself, his system, and the mysterious case of Sammy Jankis.

The narrative structure is—more than anything else—what makes Memento Memento. Placing each scene in reverse order simulates Leonard's anterograde amnesia, forcing viewers to experience events with a similar amount of confusion. Yup: that ache deep in your thinkpan is supposed to be there (thanks, Nolan).

Too Much Trust

We can accept this strange beginning and very quickly adapt to how the film will be told. Nolan is even nice enough to help us out by having the scenes overlap slightly so we have some semblance of continuity. We learn to trust this movie to do its job… but we also (unfortunately) learn to trust Leonard.

Big mistake.

Leonard's our protagonist and, despite his condition, we don't suspect him to be an unreliable narrator until it's already too late. When he tells us about his condition and his past and Sammy we take them all as factual exposition, not subjective truths to be question. When visual discrepancies show up, we (if we notice them) assume that they are continuity errors, not purposefully hints at the malleable nature of memory.

As the moving progresses (regresses?) we assume we are witnessing progression towards an important end—the death of Teddy—in reverse. Then we realize that we're witnessing another link in a chain of endless killings; we realize this has all happened before.

Finally, we realize that, for better or worse, this could actually be a break in that chain and that it is up Leonard whether or not his journey of revenge ends where our story begins.