A cerebral odyssey of memory and self-discovery

Rating: Null/10 (19 September 2004)

"Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind" is a searing roller-coaster of those unrelenting, cherished memories we would like to forget but still very much stay with us through life, about how certain memories cannot simply be erased from the mind because the mind sometimes works against our desires and preferences. The film enters us into a world of delirium, of resurfaced memories, and self-discovery, as we tour the world of a man who seeks to obliterate any memory of his "love" Clementine in undergoing a special surgery which allegedly erases unwanted memories. This sounds like a medial concept at the surface, leaving us to wonder how a single surgery can be absorbed into a two hour movie. Once we take a look inside the mind of an obviously confused yet experienced man, the story contorts itself into a brilliant, enjoyable roller-coaster of the man's identity: his relationships, events defining his existence, and certain revealing elements into Clementine's history as well. This is one wild (sometimes too zippy), fascinating, and relentless cerebral odyssey, taking us directly into the source of the mind, and how certain interference to its contents (this surgery in particular) can probably lead to a stampede of other memories in the way, which remind us of exactly why we are who we are. Definitely worth seeing, for its intellectual and cerebral value; a life inside the forever working mills of the mind. ***1/2 out of ****