Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Directed by Michel Gondry

It seems transparent to me that if we forget how we lived, if we forget all the heartache and hurt, all the jealousy and name calling and abuse, then we’ll never grow from it. Of course you can’t tell that to the Daniel Nava of a decade ago, hell, even a few years ago. I was keen to forget everything, to move forward, and escape the shadows of the past. I saw everything around me collapse as if made of sand, drifting into the ephemera. To erase the past would be a cheat; to eschew all parts of reality that do not fit a narrow aperture. I guess we all do it. I actively try not to anymore.

Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a perennial favorite. I remember trying to purchase the DVD as a high school student, getting carded at a Tower Records before going to a local K-Mart where apathetic staff couldn’t care less that I was buying an R-rated movie. Regrettably the only copy was a full-screen version. Embarrassing. Melissa, a girl that I had a crush on in my junior year, would talk about the film frequently and I wanted to like what she liked. I suppose some things never change. Again: embarrassing. 

With time the film has meant different things to me. With Karina, it was about the enduring nature of love, in spite of over a decade of strain and bickering, like Joel and Clementine, I thought that we were destined for one another. As I entered my thirties, Charlie Kaufman’s brand of existential anxiety ended up informing my dating life, where the first sign of complacency would inspire me to have my eyes on the exit. Other times, it was the promise of a chance encounter, of being around women that inspired something thrilling, that jolted something awake in me akin to how Joel and Clementine first met. Now? I’m showing my age but Clem’s impulsive desire to erase Joel from her memory, only to have Joel follow suit, speaks to a youthful impetuousness that’s in my rear view. I love these characters for being so feeling, with Gondry’s direction capturing the very essence of what it means to remember and forget. But they’re not models for how to love or be loved; they’re just fucked up and searching for their own peace of mind. Honestly: same.