Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

watched Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind recently and it was such a fab movie, I gotta recommend it! gotta love the bittersweet love stories like Love Me If You Dare, etc etc etc. besides horrors, bittersweet romance, unconventional, artistic movies would appeal to me. for the former, I guess I like it because it's not those so unrealistic like some romance stories. it's what relationships are like- bittersweet.

as described from Wikipeida, the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 American drama by French director Michel Gondry. The film uses elements of science fiction and neosurrealism to explore the nature of memory and romantic love. It opened in North America on March 19, 2004 and grossed over US$70 million worldwide.

Gondry worked on the story with Charlie Kaufman and Pierre Bismuth, a French performance artist. Together, they won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2005. The film stars Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet and features Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson, Elijah Wood, Jane Adams, and David Cross.

Blessed are the forgetful
for they forget the better
even if they're blunders

"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;".

The 2 quote mentioned above is mentioned in the movie and the latter is where the brilliant title is taken from as well, from part of the poem Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope. If you break down the title, sunshine means happiness, cheerfulness and spotless mind means a mind that is clean, undefiled, free from spot or stain.
This a story of a tragic love affair, where forgetfulness became the heroine's only comfort. Where eternal happiness seems possible only from a spotless, clean, undefiled mind.. case in point, here's some random page discussing about the title/movie.

Sypnosis:
Emotionally withdrawn Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) and dysfunctional free spirit Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) meet each other for the first time at a beach in Montauk, New York, and subsequently become romantically involved. However, two years into their relationship, they fall out of love with each other. Clementine discovers the services of Lacuna, Inc., a firm led by Dr. Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) that claims to be able to erase all specific memories from a person's mind. Clementine opts to have Lacuna erase Joel from her mind. She hands over all of her possessions that have a link to their romance. When Joel seeks out Clementine the next day to try to make up, he finds out that she has completely no knowledge of who he is and is being wooed by Patrick (Elijah Wood), a technician from Lacuna who became smitten with Clementine. He is making use of her past memories and the items given to Clementine by Joel to win her affection. Joel investigates further and finds out about Lacuna. He opts to have his mind wiped of all memory of Clementine. He hands over to Lacuna all the items he believes have something to do with his relationship with her.

The Lacuna technicians, Patrick and Stan (Mark Ruffalo), arrive at Joel's apartment to perform the mind wipe as he sleeps. It is an all-night process. Mary (Kirsten Dunst), Stan's girlfriend who is also a Lacuna employee, shows up. Patrick leaves the apartment to spend time with Clementine. Stan and Mary are left to mind the machine. They end up having sex and getting stoned. Inside Joel's mind during a lucid dream, Joel realizes that his memories of Clementine are being erased in reverse order. As he experiences in his mind the earlier, happier times with her, he realizes that he wants to stop the procedure and keep the memories. He begins to fight the mind wipe by trying to hide Clementine in deeper memories of his mind. Joel's resistance causes the machine to foul up, and Stan and Mary are forced to call Dr. Mierzwiak to help to restart and complete the procedure. While Dr. Mierzwiak is able to restore the process to normal, his arrival brings about several awkward feelings between himself and the stoned Mary. Shortly later she learns that she had her mind wiped of her former affair with Dr. Mierzwiak. Joel realizes that he is not able stop the mind wipe process, but before his last memory of Clementine at the Montauk beach house is erased, she tells him she loves him and says "meet me in Montauk."

Joel wakes up the next day, decides to skip work, and takes the Long Island Rail Road train to Montauk where he meets Clementine. Unaware of who each other is, they quickly bond and begin to form a new relationship. The same day, Mary quits her job, steals the client files from Lacuna and mails them back to their clients. After returning to the city, Joel drives Clementine to her home to get her toothbrush so she can spend the night at his place. She meets Patrick, who is there to woo Clementine and wonders why Joel is still seeing her. When Clementine returns, she finds her Lacuna file in the mail and plays the tape from it for her and Joel. Joel thinks that she is toying with his feelings, forces her to leave his car and drives off alone. Patrick attempts to cheer Clementine up but she verbally lashes out at him and breaks off their budding relationship. Clementine travels to Joel's apartment. She finds Joel with his own Lacuna tape and holding a drawing from their former relationship that was missed out when he handed over his possessions to Lacuna. They both become aware of their former relationship. The two recognize that their relationship may have problems based on their past, but decide not to let those failings prevent them from seeing each other. The movie ends with them in a teasing snowball fight on the Montauk beach.

gotta love the movie.. it seems to coincide with the quotes I mentioned in my previous entries:

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.” - Neil Gaiman

“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”- Jim Morrison

I think this movie will become my all time favourite now, because I can't remember my past favourites.. haha.. in view of the title and the meanings, should I be glad I'm forgetful? cos I realised I don't remember or keep much of my memories.. I don't know why. don't remember things I ought to.. it's like what's lived and learnt becomes tucked away in my head somewhere.. it'd be hard for me to take them out to reflect or recount them..

was my forgetfulness just how I am, or a way out when I was young, and bullied? was it how I dealt? by tucking those memories behind? and if it's not how I am, why did it pervades to even now? It might be a good thing, but it's mostly bad because all I can see is the present and not the past which makes a person who he/she is.

like even if I blog about past experiences, which may help in recounting memories but the thing is, I don't really go back to read them because when I do, it sounds stupid, my past entries, but not enough for me to want to delete my blog because it's my keepsake. afterall, blogging does help me express myself and how I feel at that time somehow. it somehow is therapeutic to vent your frustrations and"bookmark"/share with people nice videos and stuffs.



haha.. guess everyone knows love hurts and wished there was a Lacuna Inc. sigh. love this movie and the artistically "colored"/set scenes. it was sweet he was running away with Clementine hiding her so she won't be erased from his memories.. and I love the OST of this movie as well, it just fits.. loved especifically Breaking Benjamin's Forget It.. Beck's Everybody Gotta Love Sometime. the lyrics are wonderful as it brings.. nostalgia.. I'd totally intro these songs in a later entry.

come September, I'd be 21..
the thing about such movies, it makes you a little melacholic which might not be a good thing for me..
I know perfectly that I'm indecisive, forgetful, emotional and always in a confused state as to who and how I am.
somehow a lost soul, a slow developer to catch on things.. Is who I am really alright or is it kinda pathetic? how do I change? how do I not be so emotional and let my emotions guide me instead of what a smarter choice is- that is, my rational mind? how do I get out of wallowing in self-pitying, be headstrong and always inspired and motivated, not brought down by life? how can I apply what I tell people/how I motivate people to myself? how can I bring myself to be positive, to see the lessons of things and say "I came, I saw, I conquered"? wish I knew. and I'm going to tell myself this year is a year of change. step by step.. a renewed mindset, I've got to! no more negative emotions. 1 life, I really want to live it happy.. ;)

thanks Sasha for talking sense to me .. tho it might not be what I wanna hear..