Remembered and Forgotten: Memory and Love in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
This post was originally a paper for Gary Schnittjer's Film, Culture, & Theology class at Biblical Seminary in the Summer of 2008. WARNING: Here be spoilers...
The question of whether we are ourselves without our memories is what lies at the heart of Michel Gondry’s visually stunning Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The film asks us the question of whether we would opt for a procedure that could wipe away painful memories and leave us in a state of ignorant bliss; a kind of “blank slate” for our lives. Lacuna, Inc., the company that has developed this process, claims that any kinds of painful memories can be wiped away, allowing the patient to “move on” without the ghost of recollection to bring the pain rushing back again. For many, this might seem a wonderful miracle, allowing a life without regrets, but for our protagonists Joel & Clementine, the immediate gratification of relational amnesia comes with a steep price tag.
Early on in the film, the first patient that we see undergoing the procedure to erase memories is an elderly woman. This moment comes as Joel has decided to erase the memories of his broken relationship with Clementine, giving us a clue to the deeper themes of the film. For the elderly, the loss of memory can present a frightening prospect, especially in the case of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. The question that is raised by such deterioration with age in real life is whether the victim of loses the very essence of who they are as they lose their memories. Interestingly, as the film progresses, we witness Clementine developing some of the classic behaviors normally associated with victims of these diseases – she feels confused, afraid, and as if she is unraveling, saying “I'm lost! I'm scared! I feel like I'm disappearing… Nothing makes any sense to me!” The catastrophic loss of memory – which under normal circumstances would be avoided at all costs – in this case, however, is opted for as an elective procedure, ostensibly as a solution to the more immediate emotional pains of the patient.
The fix-it-quick nature of the procedure, and the comical references to the spike in demand around holidays like Valentine’s Day, also says something about our culture. Initially, the film causes us to wonder if it wouldn’t be better if it were possible to erase painful memories, but, as the erasure of Joel’s memories progresses, we discover along with him that even the most painful of memories are precious and critical to what makes a person who they are. As he begins to fight a battle within the dream world to keep his doomed memories, he re-discovers his deep love for Clementine and desires to hold onto even painful memories at all costs. Sadly, even as Joel strives to take Clementine deeper and deeper in his consciousness to hide her from the technicians that he’s hired to erase her, the situation quickly becomes hopeless. He finally gives up and resigns himself to simply enjoying the last memories he has of her before they are wiped away. Again, this may point to the possible connection with Alzheimer’s; even as Joel re-lives his last moments of memory, we discover with him that the ignorant bliss that he longed for is nothing more than a terrifying vacuum of loss.
However, the pinnacle of the film – and Joel’s fading memories – comes at this last moment of memory. Clementine whispers “meet me in Montauk” just as Joel’s last memory is being erased and they are saying their goodbyes, a line that screams into our consciousness as we realize that perhaps the reason why we saw them both together at the “beginning” of the film – which actually comes later in “real” time – was because they had managed to sear something deeply into each other’s consciousness (presumably, Joel might have whispered something similar to Clementine as she was having her memories wiped away). It is a compass left for them to find each other again; a clue to the confused mystery of their loss of memory. In this way, the film creates a strong sense of determinism – a kind of “predestination” for a particular love. Either in being doomed to repeat the same mistakes or in being drawn to the one whom you are meant to be with, each of the “erased” characters finds themselves inexorably drawn back to the one they loved as if by gravity. Indeed, there is a sense, as in the case of Mary (Kirsten Dunst), that it is actually only the memories of the pain that can keep one from repeating one’s errors, and that their erasure ensures that one will not be able to learn from their mistakes.
The value of ignorant bliss and instant gratification is seriously questioned in the film. The central quotes spoken by Mary point to the very ideals that are being questioned: the first, from Nietzsche being “blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.” The forgetful, in this case, are left not even knowing what they’ve lost. The second quote, by Alexander Pope, is even more important, however. Coming from the poem “Eloisa to Abelard” that romanticizes the real-life love and loss of the couple by the same name, it quotes Eloisa’s jealousy over the bliss of the nuns around her who have never known love. Our film’s “Eloisa”, however, is no longer jealous of those that have no memories but desires to hang on to them even through the pain. In a magnificent closure to the film, the two central characters re-commit to each other, even after the revelation of what they’ve done to each other and that in the not too distant future their relationship will possibly falter. For Joel and Clementine, they finally know to their core that it is “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” (Alfred, Lord Tennyson).
