A multitude of signs

“Man is a being in search of meaning.” – Plato

The story of Tamara and the movie Memory They are one of those ‘coincidences’ that are completely meaningless. No, I’m just kidding! But it is true that both authors play with meaning simply by having fun with words, with images … with meaning. (I will not say that they play with us, the readers / viewers, because it is not supposed to be a Reader-Response or Psychoanalytic analysis, but a simple and straightforward formalist analysis).

Okay, let’s try again. Speaking formally both, Tamara Y Memory, have as protagonists a male figure in search of knowledge, Marco Polo in the book “Invisible Cities” and Leonard Shelby in the movie “Memento”. (Wait! Before we get into themes, plots … literary devices … and all those formal elements, did you notice how both titles have an interesting similarity? The third letter of each title is a METER. Yes look: youMETERara – meMETERento! Isn’t that the letter the word? METEREmory starts with? Just a thought.)

Both main characters are surrounded by a multitude of signs that they try to decipher to find out what they want to know. “Your gaze travels the streets as if they were written pages”says Marco Polo. But do you really want to know? “I always thought that the pleasure of reading a book is not knowing what happens next”Leonard says.

Due to this abundance of signs in Tamara Y Memory, The literary resources overflow in both. For example, the literary device of anthropomorphism thrives on history, as Marco Polo constantly refers to the city as SHE: “the city says everything you should think, it makes you repeat she speech, and as long as he thinks he is visiting Tamara, he is only recording the names under which she define herself and all she parts “

In the film, amplification It is a literary device of constant use, since Leonard amplifies his sentences to include in each one as much information as possible given his condition of short-term memory: “I have to believe In a world out of my own mind I have to believe that my actions still have meaning, even if I can’t remember them. I have to believe that when my eyes are closed, the world is still there. “

Images it is, of course, the literary device most present in both. Marco Polo, in Tamara, he is attacked with a wide range of images that he cannot make sense of: “Whatever the city, under this thick layer of posters, whatever it contains or hides, you leave Tamara without having discovered her.“Leonard, in Memory, captures and holds onto specific images trying to map your journey: “The bits and pieces you never bothered to put into words.”

You know, we never learn the name of the city where Leonard is trying to solve his riddle. Since, as he says, “We all lie to ourselves to be happy”, we thought the name was Tamara. What a significant coincidence!