How can you remember to forget?

Rating: 10/10 (17 April 2001)

Guy Pierce plays a character (Leonard) who's obsessed by a memory; unfortunately, that memory happens to be the last thing he remembers before suffering from a rare memory-loss condition. In fact, this movie centers around the haunting, eerie way in which Pierce's character has woven that memory into the very fabric of his existence.
The masterpiece of Memento is the way in which the director literally "sucks" the viewer into Leonard's "mind". This movie truly succeeds at engulfing the viewer into that swirling, whirling, twisting, dizzying world that constitutes Leonard's confused existence. Moreover, the mental acrobatics demanded of us to follow this movie is what makes the ending (which is actually the beginning of the story) absolutely the most poignant climax I've experienced since "Angel Heart" (in which the detective played by Mickey Rourke discovers that he's been searching for himself -- or rather, the person he used to be -- all along).