Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - review
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
It’s an arty-sort of film, with remarkable cinematographical concepts. It’s like a cross between a romance-comedy and one of those art films. The story is about a couple, who are as unlike each other as you can ever get. Joel (Jim Carrey) does a fantastic job of portraying a lost, sad, serious, artistic, down-to-earth guy who falls in love with Clementine (Kate Winslet with varying garish hair colours), a lively, idealistic, castle-in-the-clouds, confused, messed up yet free-spirited girl. One day Clementine undergoes a procedure to completely erase Joel from her life, leaving Joel highly puzzled and miserable indeed. When Joel finds out what she’d done, he decides to do the same. However, halfway through the procedure, he comes to realise that he still loves her, despite all that she is (or rather, is not), and thinks of creative ways and means to keep her alive in his memory.
The movie shuttles between real-life, past, present and Joel’s memories. Each transition smooth, yet startling at the same time. It is indeed a good film, though, I believe it would have been a great film if the actors (both of them) could add a greater myriad of emotions to their faces.
I think the crux of the film is simply - WOULD YOU RATHER ESCAPE OR FACE UP TO REALITY?
I hardly think that erasing a memory from your life, just because it is too painful a memory is something that we should do. If it were some awful memory like seeing a crazed murderer hack down yr family into pieces, or being raped, or some kind of incident that would almost definitely cause major psychological trauma to you, then an erasure could be justified. If not, then seeking an erasure of an unpleasant memory is simply an ‘easy way out’. We do not grow from running away from our problems, we grow from lessons learnt from them, no matter how unpleasant it might be.
Often, I find myself wondering… If I could have the power to go back into time and change things, would I have said something different? Would I have done something else? Or would I have chosen a different path? Such that I would then be able to avoid some unpleasant incident, some painful accident, or simply, just to avoid friction with someone… Out of those numerous times I’ve thought of this, I’ve only had a ‘yes’ once. Most other times, I’m really not willing to change things that have already happened, or maybe it could be ‘cos I’m just too lazy and too bored to go over things again. ;) Without these occurences, I would never have been what I am today.
Another point that the movie brought out was, in times when we are in pain, try to remember the good times. It’s really typical… in the early days when you’ve just broken up with your ’significant other’, you are just so gloomy and sad and all that crappy feeling just overwhelms you… the quarrels, the final parting words, the phrases that hurt and those that cut most deeply keep replaying in your mind. Perhaps gradually, these wounds might heal and you revert back to your old self (but of course with some scars…) but the healing could go better and faster if you’d just concentrated on the good times.
I wouldn’t give up all the memories I have of a person, whether they were good or bad, just so that I would be free from the pain of the bad ones. It’s NOT worth it!
