Analysis of the psychological thriller, Memento:

Memento:

• Voice over - the voice over suggests a stream of consciousness showing a lack of certainty and confusion within the character. 

• No memory - he does not know how long he has been in the hotel room, this also suggests that he nay not know who he is. 

• Protagonist - achilles heel - he is unable to make any new memories suggesting he is vulnerable and may feel isolated. His way round this is to use his body as a memory or notepad. He has several tattoos of vital information on his body as he is unable to remember these things, this is a good example of mise en scene. He also has photographic evidence of other occurrences.

• Perception of reality - he does not have any idea of what is going on. 

• Slow edit - the slow pace and close up images indicate the confusion and drowsiness of the character. The high angle in the hotel room shows us that he is only wearing a shirt and has bare legs. 

• Black and white beginning - this suggests to us that when the scene is in black and white, the character is at peace, it also suggests the scene is aged. When the scene is in color the character is more agitated and uneasy. 

• Reverse of time - the reverse in time suggests these are memories, this is shown at the beginning when the first scene is turned around and is reversing what happened when the man was shot. This also distorts the sense of continuity in the scene. This is an example of a non-linear narrative because the end is at the beginning of the movie and then the beginning is following this. 

• Character - the character portrays a sense of danger and unreliability in the audience as we are watching because he makes us intrigued to find out what will happen next because it could be from one extreme to the other.

• Dual identity - the man has a dual identity, also known as schizophrenic, this adds to the uncertainty the audience have in this character. 

• Close up - in the hotel scene there is a close up of the characters eyes, this links in with the beginning when there is a zoom on the broken glasses, this is a way of showing that the dead characters identity is now broken as he is no longer alive.