ERASABLE MEMORIES

The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. What a beautiful name for a film! The temptation was irresistible, and the film was pretty engaging. But not as lovely as the title, which is originally taken from a quote by Alexander Pope. A psychological thriller mixed with science fiction, this film made me wonder what could happen if this possibility of target memory erasure comes to a reality. 

Here, the protagonist, Joel, a deeply shy and reserved young man who silently worries ‘why do I fall in love with every woman I meet’, one day painfully realises that his sweetheart has erased him from her mind. He has taken ample pain for Clementine, his lover. After a fight, for her own reasons, Clementine decides to end the relationship with this unusually withdrawn guy. And there is a psychiatric centre which does this “target memory erasure” procedure “scientifically”! Having discovered about this sad experiment she did in her mind to erase him, Joel breaks down initially and later decides to go to the same guys to get her erased from his mind. It was a sort of revenge that comes out of ego. And there you find a lot of conflicts with the erasure guys, which, I doubted, often takes the plot off its original thread. Somewhere in the middle of the process, he realises that it may not be a very good idea. When it comes to love, it is not easy to erase everything, as the trailer temptingly says. He desperately wants to keep some of her memories back in his mind as it still can give him some happiness. The story of their relationship and his own past is revealed in cleverly knit non-linear narratives. The realisation about recapturing memories of love is not reserved to the male protagonist. As a positive note, Joel and Clementine begin the same relationship afresh. May be never to erase each other. Brilliantly shot. 

Film Review: ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND / Dir: Michel Gondry / Cast:Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet / 2004 / US / English  

By MOHAMMED NOUSHAD