Nirvana and Samsara: the eternal flow of the river of memories

Rating: Null/10 (24 July 2004)

"Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind" is definitely, in my opinion, one of the best script by Charlie Kaufman and the movie itself delivers too, in almost every aspect, being cinematography, directing or acting.
What strikes me first is the cinematography. The whole movie looks like an independent movie shot with hand-held camera off the street and that ppl who made this didn't bother with too much editing afterwards either. But the washed-out sunshine and blank winter scenes gave the story a consistent feeling of void, emptiness. It successfully delivered a subdued, hushed sentiment without being unnecessarily depressing. Not to mention the metaphorical scenes of the disappearance of memories: the confused face fading into darkness, to be lost forever; the collapse of the beach house like a sand house washed by the current of time; the erase of ppl one by one which reduced the crowded central station into a ghost house and deserted land...they are just all beautifully and artfully done.
Another funky side of this movie is how the premise is set up. The ability of selectively erasing memories from a person's mind is down-right sci-fi, but that's as high-tech as it gets. The private clinics that performs this uncanny operation is run by a lackluster doctor in his late 50s who looks more like a miserable salesman who forgot suicide as an option than a cutting-edged scientist. And his staff members are a bunch of wackos and mishaps that seem inevitably flunked out of high school. And that¡¯s the beauty of it. The whole thing is based on a joke, but u just can't help wanting to believe and feel sad about it. In a certain sense, it reminds me of Metamorphosis.
Reflection on memories is an eternal subject of human literacy. There's of course Proust with ¡°A la recherche du temps perdu.¡±, the Memoir of All Time, and Virginia Woolf¡¯s ¡°Mrs. Dalloway¡±, where Clarissa went about her day in mundane business while mentally traveled through her whole life and re-affirm her of her status in society and philosophy in life. Same with Peter Walsh, the ultimate outcast, returning to London brought back his memories of the youth, intertwining with Calrissa's, and also re-affirmed his disdain of the upper class and justified his exile. On a smaller and simpler scale, the movie touched the same subject. It said nothing more than It's our memories that made us who we are.¡±, a clich¨¦ indeed, but it was said in a convincing and witty way. In the middle of the process, Joel (Jim Carry) realized his memories of Clementine (Kate Winslet) are too precious to sacrifice for the ease of the pain, so together they try to escape from the relentless pursue of the erasing process. The movie took a dangerous turn here, risking in sliding into the clich¨¦ of another Hollywood romantic movie, but this time Kaufman handled it gracefully. (Unlike ¡°Adaptation¡±, which has a glorious first 20 mins then faded into irrelevance shortly after) In spite of their heroic and persistent efforts, the memories were finally totally erased, a metaphor of the futile struggle of retaining humanity in an age of machinery. But the triumphant statement had been made, so humanity did finally prevail. In a reincarnation sort of way. This is the cynical part of the movie, the display of the hopeless habit of human being to fall for the same emotional pattern over and over again, in spite of their constant efforts to jump out the circle and achieve the sweet nirvana of nonchalance. The affair between the secretary and the doctor is a clever subplot that addressed the same issue. The secretary fell for the doctor again, knowing he has a family, after erasing her memories of having affair with him. Quick wit? Yes. But it serves a convincing conter part of Joel and Clementine, who woke up in the process and faced their oblivion. Just like Septimus Smith serves as a counter part to Mrs. Dalloway but ultimately perished.
It's fair to say that both Jim Carey and Kate Winslet broke new ground with their convincing acting in this movie. For Jim Carey, he followed a familiar pattern of establishing oneself as a serious actor after being commercially successful, like Adam Saddler did in Punch Drunk Love and recently Charlie Thorton in Monster. Admittedly, acting as an introvert, low-down, just-another-guy is not a far cry from his other roles (Dumb and Dumber and even Mask), but he deliver it ever-more gracefully in this movie. He's also very convincing in interpreting the passive-aggressive personality of Joel, and how Joel projected his insecurity onto Clementine when he accused her of being indiscriminating in sleeping with guys to get affection. Cause it's so difficult for him to gain intimacy with other people it frustrated him seeing how Clementine could do it effortless thus not cherished it as much as he did. But Kate Winslet's acting surely surpassed any other actors in this movie, when she looked at Joel apologetically and said, You know me, I'm impulsive It¡¯s a perfect footnote to why a guy like Joel would hopelessly fall in love with her. The scene of the night at the deserted beach house is very moving, it also elaborated the point that one should face their demon inside, instead of banishing it into a remote corner. Joel never felt comfortable in their relationship, and the beach house again served as a metaphor, where all Clementine was doing is enjoying the moment, while he was always an outsider and constantly looking for an excuse to leave.
Anyway, this movie has the potential to instantly make my top-5 date movie list, speaking of which, here's a tentative list :) :
5. High fidelity 4.Beautiful girls 3.Eternal sunshine of Spotless Mind 2.Natural Born Killer (I throw this in just for the heck of it :)
1.Wings of desire
Come to think of it, it's more like a list of top 5 movie to watch after the breakup.