Hi, this isn't Oscar. Actually I'm his daughter, Chelsea. But whatever, same thing. (lol YEAH RIGHT!) Today we went to see "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind" I thought it was INCREDIBLE! (But of course, I'm just a stupid kid. So, what do I know? lol)
The movie starts with the two main characters meeting, giving you the impression that it is the first time they meet. The beginning sort of just dissapears when they automatically flash forward to a scene of the main male character crying while driving home. You learn that the reason he is so sad is because he has just seen his "girlfriend" (whom he had just quarreled with that same day. You don't know this first, because you don't get to see it until later in the movie.) with another man. (But you don't see who he is and don't get excited because I'm not telling you.) So, his friend shows him a business card that reads "Clementine Blahdeeda has just erased Joel Lalala from her memory. Please never mention their relationship to her again. Thank You, Lacuna." Joel is startled at the sight of it and decides to visit Lacuna. (which is a place where they erase painful memories from peoples minds.) He asks the doctor what was going on. He responds that "Clementine was unhappy and felt she needed to move on..." so she felt it was best if she erased him from her mind. In a rage of anger Joel decides that if she wants him erased then he'd prefer to have her erased from his memory also. So, he goes for the procedure, and he is stuck in his own mind watching all the memories dissapear. While he is in his mind he realizes that he is deeply in love with Clementine and that all her imperfections (even the annoying way that her hair color is always changing to some new "crayola" shade throughout the entire film). Together him and Clementine try to run away from having their memories together erased. The story turns into a sort of cat-and-mouse kind of chase. But at the same time you are in this man's mind looking through his memory as if it were a scrapbook of his life on video.
It is entirely original. You can see little things dissapearing in the memories they are in. For instance, in one memory they are in a train station and people and luggage just start popping away (literally). In another, they are in Barnes and Noble Bookstore, where Clementine works and you can see the words on signs start to fade and dissapear and the books on the shelves start losing their color. But one of my favorite "memory sequences" was when he takes her to a memory of when he was a little boy (about 4 years old) and he was stuck inside his house on a rainy day but he wanted to ride his bike. He is hiding under the table in his pajamas and his mother is speaking with their neighbor, Mrs.Hamlet (who is now Clementine). You see them pretending to be who they are in the memory they are in because they are escaping from the "evil erasing thing", and that childhood memory was not meant to be removed from his mind. The entire movie is like a jigsaw puzzle. You need to piece it all together and when you do, you see the entire picture.It's a wonderful movie! Nobody should miss it. I'm not very good at predicting things, or knowing whether or not a movie is going to be nominated for an Oscar. But, I do hope that this movie wins Best Picture for 2004.
The meaning of the movie is hard to find. One would be that, you shouldn't make decisions so quickly because when Joel decided to erase Clementine he wasn't thinking about how much he loved her. But I think that the best one we came up with is, hurtful memories make up a person. They may not be pleasant, but without them you would just keep making the same mistakes and you wouldn't learn anything. You learn from your mistakes. So, you're mistakes and bad memories pretty much build you.
I'm going to conclude by saying, if you haven't seen it, you really should. So, I'll quit typing now, and let "The Proffessional" start writing again (Hint Hint: Love Ya, Dad). I hope my writing hasn't been too bland or boring compared to all this flamboyant writing I hear of, and I'm going to leave now (my dad will KILL BILL when he sees what time it is) Bye!
-Chelsea Jubis-
