I know its kinda old now, (seriously after looking up when it was released I felt so old) but I finally got
around to seeing Momento. Overall it was a little confusing but I think I
understand enough to construct a basic plot and commentary. So from what I
understand the main character is Leonard Shelby who is trying to find the man
who raped and killed his wife. The movie is kind of confusing because it seems
to be running backwards rather than following a traditional chronological
narrative. All that he knows about the attacker is that his name is John G. and
that when he finds him he is going to kill him. Because of the fact that he
cannot make new memories because of trauma when his wife was killed, he has to
keep very detailed records of everything that he does so that he can remember
everything. At the end after finding and killing a John G. with the help of a
cop named Teddy, it is revealed that he had already killed the real John G. in
the past with Teddy, and that the new one had to be created so that he could
continue having a meaning to his life. He also ends up realizing that he had
confused elements of Sammy Jankis, which was a case similar to his that he encountered
in the past, and he was the one who most likely killed his wife because of an
insulin overdose. In order to continue to have meaning in his life, at the very
end of the movie he burns the picture of the John G. that he just killed and
takes down the license plate of Teddy, who will become the John G. that he
kills next to continue to give meaning to his life
This movie takes a very existential approach
to knowledge where the individual has to give meaning to his own life, rather than
seek answers from an outside source. For Leonard Shelby, the only reason why he
has continued to keep on living was to get revenge for the man who raped and
killed his wife. Without this driving force, living with his condition would be
incredibly difficult without any thing for him to really accomplish because of
his lack of a short-term memory. His entire defining quality for his identity
at this point is to hunt down and take revenge. Realizing this at the end of
the movie, he chooses to make teddy the new John G. so that he can have a
target with which to define himself.
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