* * * * *
                                        
                                    Memento
                                        
> Or should that be “where the film has been”? Unlike “The Sixth Sense” and
> “The Usual Suspects”—indeed, unlike almost every other celebrated “puzzle
> film” in cinematic history—“Memento's” puzzle can't be undone with a simple
> declarative explanatory sentence. Its riddles are tangled up in a dizzying
> series of ways: by an elegant but brain-knotting structure; by an
> exceedingly unreliable narrator through part of the film; by a postmodern
> self-referentiality that, unlike most empty examples of the form,
> thoroughly underscores the film's sobering thematic meditations on memory,
> knowledge and grief; and by a number of red herrings and misleading clues
> that seem designed either to distract the audience or to hint at a deeper,
> second layer of puzzle at work—or that may, on the other the other hand,
> simply suggest that, in some respects, the director bit off more than he
> could chew. 
> 
> All of the notices about the movie have told us that the story is told in
> reverse order. We hear that Leonard, played by Guy Pearce (“L.A.
> Confidential”), kills the murderer of his wife in the film's first scene,
> and that the film then moves backward from that point, in roughly five-
> minute increments, to let us see how he tracked the guy down, ending with
> what is, chronologically, the story's beginning. 
> 
> It turns out that this is a substantial oversimplification of the movie's
> structure—and that's just one of the surprises that unfolds once you look
> at the film closely. 
> 

Via /usr/bin/girl, [1] Everything you wanted to know about “Memento” [2]
(spoilers) 

It sounds like a very intriguing movie—one that goes on the “to rent” list. 

[1] http://www.stormwerks.com/linked/
[2] http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2001/06/28/memento_analysis/index.html

Email author at sean@conman.org

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