Unlike most cult movies, Memento isn't forgotten, and was a box office hit. But call it a cult movie of the future. With its intricate reverse structure and themes of violence and revenge, it's one they'll still be screening at late-night double features in fifty years.

Before Christopher Nolan took over the Batman franchise he specialized in small movies with low budgets and daring style. And with Memento, he gambled on a complicated format that could have come off as a gimmick.

Guy Pearce stars as Leonard Shelby, a former insurance investigator with a form of amnesia that makes him unable to form new memories. The amnesia came from a head injury suffered during a break-in, when his wife was raped and killed. Now he's out for revenge, but every few minutes he has to start over, with no idea where he is and no memory of what's just happened. He has to rely on an elaborate system of notes, Polaroids and tattoos to tell himself where he is, what he's found out, and what he should do next (I especially like "EAT," tattooed upside down right above his waist).

The movie's genius is in its structure, which plays out in two separate narratives. Chronological scenes of a phone conversation with an unknown caller alternate with five-minute segments told in reverse order, so that like Leonard, the viewer doesn't know what's just happened either, until the end of the film, where the two strands come together, and the real key to the mystery is revealed.

When the movie opens, Leonard is already tangled up with a pair of questionable players. Leonard kills a man called Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) in the first scene; then, we find out that he's been a friend, or a contact, or a hustler, helping Leonard along the way, or at least claiming to. Natalie (Carrie-Ann Moss) is a bartender who helps because she's lost someone too, but whose own agenda doesn't stay submerged for long.

As the movie unravels and the pieces start to fall together, the nesting dolls of lies and betrayals are peeled away until the final explosive moment wraps us around to the beginning -- this time, when Leonard finally figures out what's going on and kills Teddy, we know too, and what we think of everyone in the story has changed.

In a true gimmick movie the twist ending only works once (who'd see No Way Out twice?), but Memento actually deserves rewatching. The first time it's easy to get wrapped up in the device and look for holes, which is a shame, because it's a tight, taut story (I only spotted one small one, when Leonard conveniently can't find a pen).

And unlike the usual thriller, it manages to raise bigger questions, like how we use memory to create our perceptions of the world, and what happens if we aren't sure we can trust ourselves. Nolan may have gone on to the big leagues, but Memento will always be up there with his best.

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