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Memento the movie and its hidden spiritual message - native - 07-04-2011
I recently watched Memento for the second time. Without having to concentrate on the plot, I realized that the entire movie is a spiritual metaphor about remembering who we are in the divine sense.
Firstly, I think Leonard's searching for his wife's killer represents the journey of trying to restore aspects of our feminine side that have been lost. In seeking, he hopes to satisfy vengeful feelings and restore his memory (symbolic of battling the evil in the world and hopefully coming closer to God and remembering love). Metaphoric of our current unenlightened approach to peace.
There are many references about religion and the bible..how we create or change things from memory, or actually remove details about our past altogether. Through metaphor, the movie suggests that we analyze ourselves and our environment with a rational mind, while also valuing our intuitive notions. Most of us have intuitive metaphysical and existential feelings growing up, but we bury them with the systems and modes of thinking presented to us. There is heavy influence in the movie urging us to remember who we are.
To give you an idea of how deep the symbolism is in the movie, take the scene where Leonard encounters the drug dealer in the abandoned building. The man drives up in a Jaguar and a suit, with a trunk full of money. Leonard knocks him to the ground, and the drug dealer pleads with him, offering money. He says something to the effect of "I don't want your f*$#n money..I want my life back!" Leonard strangles him, and then what does he do? He takes his clothes and puts his suit on, then symbolically hides him in the basement which represents his subconscious mind. He encounters Teddy, learns the truth of his condition, and further buries the truth by willfully ignoring what he finds out. Then he drives off in the Jaguar. The metaphor seems to be that we willfully ignore many things about ourselves (including the evil that lies within us all), seek to restore love through violence, and distract ourselves by not acknowledging our actions as a whole, instead choosing to hide them in our subconscious and then further cover all this up by embodying a false persona through pursuing the material trappings to provide comfort.
Teddy seems to be the Devil in the positive sense as a light-bringer. He is of course killed in the beginning of the movie, symbolic of rejecting perceived heresy which has occurred throughout history. Leonard is also of course misled and manipulated in the movie.
This is just a brief summary. I suggest you watch it again! At the end Leonard's internal dialogue says something like "We all need mirrors to remember who we are." So perhaps that is a nod to oneness.
RE: Memento the movie and its hidden spiritual message - Oceania - 07-04-2011
i do want to see it again, i love that movie.
RE: Memento the movie and its hidden spiritual message - Gribbons - 07-05-2011
Most perceptive. Think I'll have to watch it again. Great movie. Thank you.
RE: Memento the movie and its hidden spiritual message - native - 07-06-2011
Films and stories inevitably take on archetypal topics..films are especially formulaic..but I still think there was a deliberate underlying spiritual message.