Memento Movie Reflection

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Is it really ok to lie to one’s self? What if one couldn’t actually remember certain life events, is it better to lie and make everything better or actually take the truth no matter what condition one end up left in? Memento is a film shot and written very differently from movies of the same genre. Not only was it very confusing, but it was a film that required a great amount of focus as well as deep analysis from the audience’s part. In the beginning, the audience is introduced to a character named Leonard Shelby who is on a mission to find his wife’s murderer and rapist to get his rightful revenge. Right away, his disability of forming new memories is introduced. The film incorporates different colors and different events that in the end, The tattoo of Sammy Jankis becomes very significant to Leonard because it reminds him of how his life is more disciplined in a way considering how he keeps track of his memories by recording them. Sammy seems to be some sort of figment in Leonard’s imagination and towards the end, it becomes questionable if they are the same person. Leonard really does believe that Sammy really exists, this of course, confuses the audience and forces them to come up with their own ideas about this “Sammy” figure. In the second to last scene of the film, Teddy is shown explaining to Leonard how he and Sammy are actually the same person. Sammy further mentions how Leonard created this alternative world of “Sammy” so he does not have to face the fact that he killed his wife. The black and white scenes show Sammy’s story as Leonard tells it. Leonard even says: “Sammy had no drive, no reason to make it work”, he then goes further to say: “Me? Yeah, I got a reason”. Of course, Leonard’s reason to live is to get revenge for the death of his wife. How can one trust that Leonard’s wife’s death actually occurred the way it was stated when Leonard is shown to be a manipulative liar to

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