memory loss

Leonard hunts his wife's killer in Memento using tattoos and notes, because he cannot hold a new memory for more than a few minutes. A man walks out of the desert with no idea who he is in Paris, Texas. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind lets a couple erase each other and then watches one of them fight to keep what is left. The self goes as the record goes.

What holds them together is that the missing past is load-bearing. A film with a flashback, or a secret withheld from the audience, is not this; the character has to be the one who cannot reach it. Where Nostalgia & Longing aches for a past it remembers too well and Identity Crisis asks who one is, this theme takes away the evidence either question would need.