07 May 2009

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Despite being one of the saddest movies I've ever seen, it is still among my favorites. Jim shows his serious side, and Kate does well as the quirky, impulsive woman. I really enjoyed the way time played out in the film - backwards yet forwards and then full circle.

I hope humans never develop the ability to erase memories - at least not commercially... who knows if the ability exists within the government and military. I think consideration of erasing one's memory is cowardly. We are meant to have a healthy reaction, to change, learn and grow from our negative experiences; we are not meant to simply remove them. It's a form of cheating life.

Even though I'm not a fan of the concept of memory erasure, I found the movie fascinating. It's a great love story, really. My favorite part of it all is that the two lovers were meant to be and ended up that way despite their efforts of removing the other from their mind. It's almost a fairy tale in that it ends up with a happy ending (which is actually the beginning in a few senses).

I recommend this movie for when you're in an philosophical, dazy, relaxed mood. The film's look and feel makes one feel as if they are the one experiencing the erasure of memories. It's hard to explain. Those who've seen it probably know what I mean here. The vision of the movie is perfect for its content. Does that make more sense? Anyway, check it out.



IMDB Article
Wikipedia Article
Official Website
YouTube Trailer

-Amanda

1 comment:

ambennett86 said...

An afterthought. (I think I learned about this when I was learning about MC Escher, back in my freshmen English class...?) I once learned about an old torture method where the person being tormented was bound and place in front of a huge, white wall. The person would be placed very close to the wall, and the wall would be so wide that even with turning their head, all they saw was the wall. The point was that they would go crazy because of nothing to put the white wall into perspective. All they saw was this enormous, plain, white wall.

As I was reading the title of this blog entry I realized that having "eternal sunshine" on a "spotless mind" was exactly the same as being tortured except one thing: the man being tortured with the white wall is aware of his being tortured and is not torturing himself.

I would never want to have such a perfect memory or life. If you don't have an occasional bruise to compare to the good times, how can one know what makes something good anyway? Life isn't meant to be pristine; it's meant to get a few scrapes along the way.

Food for thought.