To explain Nolan, one must go back to this memorable film.

Rating: 8/10 (18 April 2020)

In this nine million dollar sophomore film, written in signature Nolan non-linear fashion, protagonist Leonard, who suffers from short-term memory loss, is followed on his quest, to create meaning out of his wives death. The highly philosophical screenplay, incorporates complex themes, like free will vs. determination, existentialism and Schopenhauer's "subjective idealism", without coming of as pretentious or sacrificing it's entertaining quality. Eventhough Leonard moves around like a chess piece, it's on the one he created. The synapsis of his odd, but conscious action, restarting a cause and effect chain, which revokes his freedom, gives Sartre's idea of acting in "bad faith", due to his special identity, a complete new spin.
The film's concept, of the viewer going back, to find unterstanding, can be projected to his entire oeuvre, since this movie is the blueprint, he stayed more or less true to, in all of his following movies. You got a narcissistic but driven anti-hero in a suit, moving through a non-linear plot, just to leave you with confusion or even better than that deep thought, provoked by the open ending. Nolan went on, to create monumental 165 million dollar works like "Interstellar", but what makes him great, is his ability to aim just as high, while staying on the ground.