ABSTRACT
MEMENTO I S A N E O - N O I R psychological thriller ostensiblycentered around the investigation of a crime and the search for justice and revenge. Noir and neo-noir narratives are typically located in dystopic urban settings. Central protagonists are of uncertain moral virtue. The fictional worlds in which they operate are morally ambiguous at best, and characters are typically left to their own devices to sort out questions such as who can be trusted and what is true. Noir and neonoir operate in the ironic mode, emphasizing discrepancies between what the audience and the film’s central protagonists initially think is true, and what we later either learn or suspect to be the facts of the matter. These neo-noir features are at work in Memento, all of them complicated by the curious condition that prevents the film’s protagonist, Leonard, from being able to create and sustain new memories.
