Just finished watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I still think that they’re better off with their memories erased. Most because I don’t think Clementine will get along with Joel well and I can picture myself as Joel (hermit-like, boring existence) and the only thing I can think about if someone like Clementine climbs into my life is how annoyingly disruptive it will be. And even if they are getting along okay at that time, I think their relationship is doomed to fail.
My favourite part is where this guy (Forgot his name. He was one of the two guys working on the task at Joel’s house before Mary came.) tells Patrick how unethical it was to steal Clementine’s panties when what Lacuna does as a company is not nearly as ethical. And I thought Patrick looked like Michael Schofield in Prison Break. Shall check that out. Maybe he is.
I did cry quite a bit in the film (I cry at the slightest thing in films, so its not surprising) but mainly more so at the start because such a character like Joel exists and I can see myself in him. I can picture myself doing the exact thing at the start of the film— calling in sick and going to Montaut. I think I will be intrigued by someone like Clementine but it will never go that far. And even at the back, it was not because I’d wished that both of them got back together. I can only think about how such a crisis will happen again and drive both of them apart. They’re just very, very different people who cannot be placed in the same jar together. I want Joel to go back to his old life.
And I think he eventually will.
But I must say that it is good that a film of this kind exists. And the title is pretty.
Huis Clos 
This post really made me want to revisit the movie… I have only seen it once, and in my senior year of high school. I think your interpretation is much more sophisticated than mine back then, because I remember only feeling like it was a really good movie that brought me such joy in the idea of love and togetherness… I remember my closest friend (who is still my closest friend) feeling the same way about it…. Hmm!
I actually don’t remember much except for a snow scene, laughter, and that weird character played by Elijah Wood, and something sexual about the girl that worked at that place…. so odd how memories leave us, no matter how vivid they were at their beginning!
I think it’s beautiful when something can bring you tears, especially with souls such as ours who have a real danger of devolving into Hamlet-like cynicism…
I recently cried after watching The Fountain. Oh my goodness, that movie was almost too much to handle, really beautifully done, really well balanced in its presentation of the plot and characters— it was completely secular (or humanist) in the sense that it did not give you an ‘easy’ or ‘happy’ ending, but also gave you the chance to hope that even tragedy can be restorative and in some sense necessary for life.
I would say more than that it is good that that movie exists… I actually think it is progressive enough to raise people’s awareness if they watch it and internalize it deeply enough… (not because it has anything original, I think it takes a lot from existential philosophy, but because its presentation is unique, impacting, beautiful and uncompromising).