The release of the film in 2000 performed two essential tasks. It proved that even a film based on a wronged husband on a vendetta plot can also find a hallowed place in the high brow galleries of Cinema’s Hall of Fame. Secondly, it turned director Christopher Nolan into a cult figure.

The very first thing to note about the film as its unique feature is the narration of a story against the linear chronological order, chopped up into several short sequences arranged in a reverse way told from the point of view of a man suffering from short term memory loss. However, much more waits beneath this surface level stunt. The very opening shot of a Polaroid snap slowly fades away instead of developing followed by the unique structure with occasional flashbacks really leave the audience dazed and confused.

It is precisely from this point that the protagonist played by Guy Pierce starts becoming a familiar entity to the audience owing to common shared experience of being floating loose and somewhat aimless in time and also in experience. What follows for the next 110 minutes is a ride that at the same time is both intensely captivating and equally nightmarish that perhaps gets manifested on the imagery of Pearce standing bare body in a room full of paper chits and hand notes and tattooed markings all over his body, shot in monochrome. On reaching the end (or the beginning!) it appears to be spit on the face of the masculine code of honor and duty.