Memento (2000)

00:00:00.000 : :1. Beginning Credits
00:07:01.838 : :2. John G
00:11:06.457 : :3. Living for Revenge
00:16:58.809 : :4. The feel of a person
00:22:56.375 : :5. Facts Not Memories
00:28:30.584 : :6. helping Natalie
00:32:35.495 : :7. The Present is Trivia
00:40:14.704 : :8. Getting Rid of Dodd
00:46:04.679 : :9. Piecing the Puzzle
00:53:46.974 : :10. can’t Remember to Forget you
01:00:11.566 : :11. What Leonard’s Become
01:17:52.710 : :12. We’ll Still Be Best Friends
01:26:33.438 : :13. How it All Began
01:33:25.517 : :14. Ferdy’s Bar
01:40:44.580 : :15. Create a puzzle You Can Never Solve
01:53:26.591 : :Closing Credits
01:56:28.482 : :Opening Credits

Is there anything more subjective than memory? Where does memory reside and what exactly does it offer us as individuals? Is it the anchor grounding us in our own personal time stream, or is it dead weight that keeps us in a self-dug rut? Memento offers a lead character bracingly free of both the constraints and the identity which memory provides for every human being. Leonard is adrift in an experiential sea where he's never sure what's happening or in fact why he's doing what he's doing. His body is covered with tattoos with which he's inscribed himself in order to help keep on track, and he writes copious notes for himself which he finds in various nooks and crannies. But what exactly is going on?

It's part of Memento's immense appeal and almost mythical allure that the viewer, like Leonard, is never sure, even after the puzzle pieces have been put together, retrograde style, by the end of the film. Memento is in fact one of the most purposefully ambiguous movies in recent (ahem) memory, and Nolan delights in never completely wrapping things up with a pretty and/or bloody little bow. All that we really know is that Leonard has killed his tagalong Teddy (Joe Pantoliano), whom Leonard has come to believe was involved in the rape and murder of Leonard's wife (Jorja Fox, in flashbacks). Led on by a perhaps duplicitous bartender named Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss), Leonard is a free agent in every sense of the word, a wisp of vengeful smoke blown hither and yon by competing yarns he's told and perhaps even by his own misperceptions of what has happened and is continuing to happen to him.

Against the segments that play out in reverse, Nolan intercuts a relatively straightforward set of chronological vignettes in black and white (which instantly separates them from the main color retrograde elements) where Leonard gleaning information on the phone from his hotel room. The two elements finally merge toward the end of the film, but it's Memento's crowning glory that in a final twist of fate, we're not quite sure things are as Leonard thinks they are, and the film's climax is a gut wrenching moment of uncertainty and questioning. Has Leonard finally avenged the killing of his wife? Or has he simply made himself a pawn in his own convoluted, self-constructed chess game? It's possible to come to either conclusion, or in fact both simultaneously. Rarely has a film exploited audience disequilibrium so effectively.

Memento is one of the few films where style and substance commingle brilliantly, much like (forgive me) sujet and fabula. Nolan has proven himself in subsequent films that very rare helmsman who is able to present often baroquely labyrinthine stories with impeccable flair and panache. But Nolan never lets his own virtuosity, which is inarguable, get in the way of the film's story and message, whether that be the memory impairment at the heart of Memento, the dueling magicians in The Prestige, or The Dark Knight's superhero exploits in the two Batman movies thus far released. Nolan never lets his formidable directorial craft overshadow the actual film, which is a rare commodity in the ego-drenched world of filmmaking. Memento may easily be one of the most thought-provoking films of the past several years, but it's also one of the most entertaining. That's a one-two punch that is, to put it simply, unforgettable.