Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I had heard a lot about this film for a while and had never gotten around to seeing it. The first thing I noticed was that it was directed by Michel Gondry, which surprised me because until then I had only heard of him making music videos. This was apparently his second film. I think one of the things that stuck out was that it was twisted. That is the best word I can think of to describe it. I mean Patrick uses personal effects and memories of Clementine about Joel to get her to go out with him, Howard erases Mary's memory and keeps her working for him after their affair, and Mary and Stan are getting drunk, high, and having sex practically on top of Joel, and above all the idea of removing and entire person's existence from your mind is pretty twisted all by itself. Most movies today don't have the courage to go away from happy and mainstream and show how truly screwed up people can be.

Someone in class had mentioned how horrible it was for Howard to keep Mary working for him after their affair and erasing her memory. I'm not saying it isn't I just think that from what the movie says we can't be sure why he did it. I think that his motives for keeping her employed were bad but there are different levels of bad. I don't for a second think he didn't want to ruin this nice young woman's career; I don't have that much faith in him. Instead of the power trip it is quite possible he did it as a form of test or reminder. I could see him keeping her as a show that he can control himself and he doesn't want it to happen again so he will test himself and keep her around to show his fidelity. I didn't say it was smart, but neither is cheating in the first place. The other is slightly more complicated that everyone might not get, guilt. Some people, when they do something bad they tend to overreact and decide to punish themselves, i.e. self flagellation. Sometimes they will keep something around or on their person as a constant reminder of their guilt and past transgressions. It's not that they take pleasure in it exactly but because they feel they deserve it, to never be able to forget or live down the things they have done. Regardless of the reason what he's done is wrong and even depending on the reason slightly obsessive and psychotic.

After watching the whole movie it really made me think. I curiously tried to put myself in that position of erasing my recent ex from my memory and then meeting them again and getting that tape of all the bad things about the relationship I had said. It frightened me a bit to be honest. To put it simply the end of the relationship was long drawn out and bad, it led to my insight into the self flagellation guilt tendency that some people have (take that as you will). Looking back on it I see that if it didn't end badly it wouldn't have ended because we were both too comfortable, imaging if Clementine wasn't outgoing, she and Joel would have stayed the "dining dead" as he called them. The thing that frightened me was that I could imagine myself in that situation not really remembering that it was bad but for the best and purposefully making the relationship last by avoiding the causes of it's collapse. I simply reminded myself that's not possible and it wouldn't happen even if it was.

Mental and emotional scars and pain are what makes you who you are, in my opinion, more so than most other memories and experiences. Marriages and children are a few of the exceptions, but even then losing them can change you more than they did in the first place. I had mentioned it in class but the adage "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" seems to me to apply very aptly to mental and emotional pain. At first I thought that since you can't really die form that kind of pain there are certain exceptions to that adage but then again after certain traumas emotionally and mentally you might as well be dead. It is a scary thing to look at someone who is essentially dead inside, to see that nothingness. Since in those situations it essentially does kill you they aren't much of exceptions. The most basic way I have seen this in action was when people who in general haven't had too many problems growing up, whether it be deaths or abuse, tend to over react to minor problems or issues compared to those who have had problems. To quote the comedian Chris Titus, "Once you've driven a drunk dad to mom's parole hearing what else is there." I tend to put people into one of two groups, fucked up, and fucked up and functional. With exceptions most people are fucked up and not all of them are functional. Ironically enough the ones that pretend to be normal and have no problems are usually the ones with the more disturbing and deep seeded issues that they keep hidden. Not everyone will understand this theory but it really is too hard to explain, some people will get it immediately and others won't.

In general I liked the movie and while it seemed depressing at the end that they were destined to repeat the same mistakes I think it is not a lost cause. Just by the fact that they have what went wrong the first time they can seek to change. If Joel was less Stoic and Clementine less impulsive is putting it lightly they could be a happy couple. A little counseling might not hurt either.