I remember saying in an earlier blog post that I was a person who believed that there was a definite truth out there. Now I find my thoughts headed in a truly postmodern direction. The movie Memento seems to align itself with the postmodernist tenet of "no ultimate truth", and I might be ready to believe that myself. I see this because Leonard, the main character, makes so many choices about what will be the ultimate truth for him.
Leonard is able to create his own truth – he doctors the police file on his case and allows himself to not record facts. However, I moved away from the ultimate truth viewpoint because of a conversation that Leonard and Teddy have about memory and facts. Leonard says that memory is unreliable, but Teddy says that facts are unreliable (this is definitely underscored by Leonard’s selective recording of his so-called facts). Teddy tells Leonard what "really happened" – that he killed his wife’s rapists. However, it is merely Teddy’s word against Leonard’s – the audience cannot say for sure what "really happened". Where is the ultimate truth? It seems there is none – only what happened for one person, and what happened for another person.
I’m inclined to move even farther away from thinking about ultimate truth because of the circular journey I saw in the movie. Leonard re-writes his own history to keep the carrot dangling in front of him, to keep himself going in circles. He says at one point in the movie: "How can I heal if I can’t feel time?" This is true – it counteracts the old adage "time heals all wounds". Leonard is stuck in the present, and his condition will always keep him there. His choices keep him there, as well. Leonard talks about his "condition" and his "conditioning" of himself. The "condition" implies a state of being. However, the "conditioning" implies progress – which we know is impossible for Leonard – not only because of his condition, but because he chooses not to move forward. He kills his wife’s rapists but he circles back to the beginning of his journey. He chooses not to heal. Leonard wants to blame his condition. At one point, he says that the rapists "took away my ability to live". But as Teddy points out, he is still living. Certainly, Leonard’s condition is in no way enviable, but he does choose the easy way to keep living. He chooses to create his own reality – he literally takes advantage of himself to keep himself in the self-created circle. Teddy says that Leonard doesn’t know who he is – but Leonard chooses who he is – again and again. He chooses to be the mentally handicapped bereaved widower searching for his wife’s rapists rather than a Sammy Jenkis in a home. If experiences are what change a person, and Leonard not only has no memory of those, but also chooses not to record them, he will never move forward or backward. He will stay in his circle for forever.
Leonard has no future, because he cannot make a past for himself – either through his memory or through his choices. This makes me think of another postmodernist viewpoint, the question of history. Leonard chooses not to make any history of his own.
I guess what I’m saying is that it’s hard for me to like Leonard’s character because I believe what he chooses is a complete cop-out. After watching the movie again, I’m wondering if there really is an ultimate truth, or perhaps just a bunch of circles. Even if the latter is correct, I’m more inclined to appreciate someone’s search (like Oedipa’s in The Crying of Lot 49) in his or her own circle, rather than Leonard’s hopping on the merry-go-round for one more ride.