Truth, Lies, and Movies

I liked the way that Momento was filmed because it seems to trick you. You constantly feel like something is being hidden from you and that Leonard knows more than you, when really he knows nothing. You have no idea why he’s never supposed to pick up the phone, but neither does he. By showing the movie in reverse, the audience is put in the same position as Leonard. Neither of you know why you’re there or what’s about to happen. You are both forced to trust the tattoos and notes. I find it similar to Aura where it makes me feel as though I’m experiencing what’s happening as opposed to watching it. We end up being manipulated just as Leonard is. The little notes give us hints as to what people are like. For example the notes that says not to trust Teddy immediately makes us not like him. The audience doesn’t trust him even though there is no evidence of why we shouldn’t. We don’t know if this could have been false information because our main character has no idea either. We are manipulated into liking and trusting Natalie, and later we find out Leonard has been manipulated by her. I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point things change again, and she went back to being trusted. I also wouldn’t be surprised if she was using Leonard to kill Teddy. Either way, the fact that we don’t know what has happened before the current scene puts us in a position where we have to be very trusting, which makes us easily manipulated. In order to stay ahead we would have to trust no one and be constantly questioning everyone in the movie and everything Leonard writes down. This style of filming is what puts us in a vulnerable position and makes the movie unique. It is the same style of manipulation that we’ve been experiencing in our books, but through a movie.