Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (part ii)

This post is dedicated to a certain Ah Guan...

http://jal4eva.blogspot.com/2004/06/eternal-sunshine-of-spotless-mind-its.html

That was my original post on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. 9th June 2004. Yesterday was 12th September 2005. More than a year past since I watch that film. Someone once told me that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind isn't a film that he would want to watch twice cos it's just so intense. Well, last year, that was my favourite movie for the year, only Last Life in the Universe came close to challenging it to be my favourite movie, but I'm not the kind who would watch a great movie twice.

I like to watch a movie, let the beauty of the move sink into me and not let myself get sick and tired of a movie that's perfect in my mind. So I ended up not watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind again, but I went through hundreds of websites discussing about that film and doing lots of research about it. I remember actively involved in a forum discussion somewhere online about that film. I remember reading through pages of webbies about what Charlie Kaufman thought about that film. I remember reading the working script and the final script of the movie to get a better literary understanding of it. But I never thought of watching it again. it was just to painful to go through the same process all over again.

But when I found out that my Film and History module was screening this film, I got all excited again. Now I had a compelling reason to watch that show again. And I was so glad that I went through it. Now that I'm a year older, and been through worse stuff than before, I'm really illuminated by the fucked up magic of Charlie Kaufman.

A year ago, I was still strung up over a certain X, and after watching the show, from Joel's point of view, I wasn't in favour of the whole process of memory ereasing. One year later, got over X, got into a rough patch, and started seeing things from Clementine's point of view. Yes, the same scenes still touched my heart, but there were others that made me emotional all over again. Maybe it was because of Joel. Joel was cohabiting with Naomi before he met Clementine, and even as he was pursuing Clementine, Naomi was still somewhere around, only that we never get to see Naomi.

Other than the main story of Joel and Clementine, the side story of Mary also tugged deep into my heart. Mary is really one disillusioned girl. Somewhere in some discussion forums, I read that there is a possibility that Mary had her memory ereased more than once. I also felt the pain of Howard's wife. why is the life of a woman so difficult.

Then also there was the story of Patrick. As much as Clementine loved Patrick for all the things he used to please her, I guess she also hated him as much as those were stuff that she so wanted to forget, but unable to do so due to Patrick's stupidity. Those gifts only make Clementine more and more confused with herself. Memories may be forgotten but emotions and feelings still remained. Subconsciously, she is still very much in love with Joel. Now thinking about it, I think she wanted to have her memories ereased only because she so loved Joel, so much that she hated him, she was upset over herself by being too strung up over him. Without this erasing of memory, it's highly possible that she cannot forget Joel and neither can she move on in life.

So much for love.

It's a pity I hadn't realised all these earlier, and was only gushing about how cute Jim Carrey was. maybe if I had realised all these much earlier I would been in that rough a rough patch.

During the film, I should have been taking notes for my project paper, but instead my whole mind was about my rough patch. I started thinking, if something that fucked up was to happen to me, would I go through that memory erasing process like Clementine. I think I might, but then again, even though I might have lost that piece of memory, the love will still be there. And if I one day come face to face with him again, like how Clementine met Joel again, I think I'll still fall in love with him again. Just like how Mary was still very much in love with Howard.

I really pity Mary. She went on in life, without the painful memories of her relationship with Howard, and continued working for Howard. And Howard can still have Mary working for him, and living with his wife, like nothing happened at all. I don't know what did Howard's wife thought when mary continued working for Howard, but I guess she suspected things. If she hadn't she wouldn't have went after Howard.

I'm still glad that I still have X in my memory though, even though those memories are pretty useless today, now that I've even more vivid memories of my rough patch. I might be pretty obsessed with my rough patch lately, but to go to the extent and erase my memories of that? I think not. I want to hold onto the beautiful memories, but the upsetting ones to. Maybe I'm more of a masochist. I think that thinking bac of past pains can make one stronger. Everytime I go through a rough period of time, at least I can clam myself that that's not the worse, or the worse hadsn't arrived yet. Self-deluding? Maybe... But don't we all do that? Only that in the film, everything is done artificially.

I'm still reading Fruitsbasket, or Furuba, but its focus isn't on memory erasing. I remember reading the part jus before Kana got married. She told Mayuko that she still had this crush on Hatori, but she was still commited to her husband. For Kana, she's lucky that Hatori kept his ground, if not I think Kana would be another Mary. I still pity Momiji, but as much as I pity him, I respect him. He has the courage to go on, and not want to experience something similiar in revenge.

Some might want to ask why not just forget the unhappy stuff and selectively remember the happy stuff. Yes, a lot of people have told me that about my rough patch, but I think that the world's a very contradicting place, and it's also about relativity. I need bad things to set beside the good to tell that the good is good. I don't want to be totally lost like Clementine.

about the ending for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, there's still a debate going on whether or not is Joel and Clementine still together. I'm a romantist, I'd like to think of them as kissing and making up, but reading the screenplay, I am under the impression the the screenplay writer doesn't really want to let us know.After both loving each other that much, what's more with a couple more days, more months, more time.