MEMORY ARCHIVING IN FILMS MEMENTO (2000) AND INCEPTION (2012)

Text topic: Studies

Text author: Страхиња Савић

The main aim of this paper is determining how personal memory archive has influenced the identity of characters in the films Memento and Inception. The above mentioned films, both directed by Christopher Nolan, belong to popular Hollywood production dealing with the subject of memory, offering various examples of semiotisation of archived memories. The main character of the film Memento deals with a series of mnemonics that help him create a personal archive of a suppressed trauma that motivates revenge, while in the movie Inception, the feeling of guilt is a generator of memory archiving. This paper will show that, in these so-called mind-game films, as defined by Thomas Elsaesser, the dysfunctional and irrational semiotisation of archived memories disturbs the psychological and individual stability of these characters, thus affecting their identity.