Lina’s costumes, however, express her artificiality and reliance on appearance. She frequently wears extravagant gowns, feathered headpieces, jewels, and furs. She showcases glamour but not depth. The scene of the musical performance where Lina lipsyncs to Kathy's voice in front of a live audience encapsulates this contrast. Lina, center stage in a shining silver, flapper-esque getup, mouths the lyrics to a song she cannot sing, while Kathy, in a more modest dress, stands concealed behind the curtain, actually performing. Lina’s flashy costume draws attention but also highlights her dependence on spectacle to maintain her stardom. Once the curtain is pulled back, the truth of her phoniness is revealed, and her ornate ensemble can no longer mask her lack of talent.

In this scene, we are looking through our narrators point of view. The Eiffel Tower represents freedom and Antoine's desire for it. Throughout the film, there are moments where Antoine is close to freedom before being brought right back to the source of his entrapment: his parents. Within the final few moments of the film, Antoine is literally trapped in a Prison cell, and then at a juvenile detention center/boarding school. These obstacles Antoines faces are similar to the buildings that block our view of the Eiffel Tower in the opening segment. The final scene, where Antoine runs away from the boys home and is face to face with the one thing he's always wanted to see--the ocean--that is his moment of freedom; parallel to when we finally see the Eiffel Tower in the open ing scene. Though, for Antoine we are unsure what comes next for him in terms of freedom. In the opening scene, the Eiffel Tower is taken out of view once more, likely mirroring Antoine possibly being brought back to the boys home, as they had said before that those who run away often get caught in the end.

https://youtu.be/0Op_tlDc4BM?si=UmupZZMpGDq5lodI

Nolan’s mise-en-scène and cinematographic choices amplify Leonard’s internal struggle and the film’s obsession with memory and self-deception. The confined space of the truck, dominated by muted tones, visually mirrors Leonard’s psychological entrapment and the claustrophobic weight of his obsession with revenge. By keeping the camera at medium close-up for both Leonard and the Polaroids, Nolan forces the audience to inhabit Leonard’s perspective, emphasizing the intimate, almost ritualistic nature of his actions and underscoring the significance of these images as his sole anchors to truth. The narration and diegetic sounds—the soft scratch of pen on photo, the flick of the lighter, the brief whoosh of fire—creates a tangible sense of intimacy, making the destruction of the Polaroids feel both deliberate and violently transformative. Leonard’s voice-over, simultaneously contemplative and self-justifying, blurs the line between victim and manipulator, transforming the act of burning evidence into an act of narrative control; the medium close-ups capture the subtle flicker of his eyes and the deliberate gestures of writing, giving the audience a visual echo of his inner monologue. Even as the camera shifts briefly to Teddy, isolated in the background and obscured by foliage, the focus remains on Leonard’s meticulous construction of memory—highlighting the paradox of his agency: he chooses what to remember and what to fabricate, enacting a ritual that cements both his vengeance and his self-delusion. Through these filmic elements, Nolan shows us the fragility of Leonard’s cognition and the almost obsessive measures he takes to give himself a sense of control in a world where his memory cannot be trusted.

This calm breaks abruptly when the men bring up the car accident. The hit man crosses into his friend’s space, pulls out a gun, and shoots him. Lynch uses this sudden shift to undercut the cozy, dimly lit setup with blunt violence. The attempted cover-up then spirals into slapstick: another accidental shot rings out, a woman next door yelps, and the hit man’s exasperated “Aw, man” punctuates his disbelief. The camera follows him in a series of messy, escalating mishaps--struggling with the injured woman, getting spotted by a janitor--turning the entire building into a chaotic maze. Through pacing, blocking, and sound, the scene adopts a clumsy, almost cartoonish rhythm that feels out of sync with the seriousness of a professional killing.

In the context of the film’s ending--where we learn Diane has hired this man to kill Camilla, and that much of the narrative is her dream--the scene’s comedic incompetence takes on meaning. In Diane’s dream world, Camilla (reimagined as Rita) is still alive. By depicting the hit man as terrible at his job, the dream symbolically protects Camilla, revealing Diane’s underlying hope that, in reality, the murder might fail. Lynch’s filmic choices--the soft lighting, relaxed staging, comedic pacing, and tonal mismatch--mirror Diane’s subconscious desire for an outcome where Camilla survives, even as her waking life tells her otherwise.