The World Forgetting, by the World Forgot

Long before this year of revolution and reading and best actress Oscar, Kate Winslet was Clementine Kruczynski in Charlie Kaufman’s brilliant and altogether original, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

A true genius, Kaufman’s work is always thought-provoking, inspiring, and mystical, but even in such stellar company, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” stands out as the brightest object in his creative constellation.

Because of its neo-surrealistic elements, non-linear narrative, and its depiction of the degrading memories of its main characters, the film can be challenging, but it’s not inaccessible—and that it requires us to pay attention only adds to its power.

Joel is stunned to discover that his girlfriend Clementine has had her memories of their tumultuous relationship erased. Out of desperation, he contracts the same team to have Clementine removed from his own memory. But as Joel’s memories progressively disappear, he rediscovers their earlier passion. From deep within the recesses of his brain, Joel attempts to escape the procedure. As the team chase him through the maze of his memories, it’s clear that Joel just can’t get Clementine out of his head.

This rich, textured film has many themes, but the persistence of love is chief among them. I say persistence, but perhaps a better word is relentlessness. Maybe this is why the movie resonates with me so much. I believe in love above all else, in its eternal nature, in its relentless pursuit of the beloved. For me, God is love and love is god.

But love isn’t just relentless, it’s also painful. Joel and Clementine get hurt and hurt each other.

Life involves suffering. Love involves pain.

What to do?

The Buddha teaches that she who loves ten has ten woes, he who loves twenty has twenty woes. Jesus, whose teachings mirror those of the Buddha in so many ways, says the same thing, but whereas the Buddha’s solution is to detach and end desire, Jesus says to love all the more—hurt with and for others, open ourselves up to the pain that comes from loving others with the full awareness that this will happen. Be compassionate as God is compassionate—actually feeling what others feel.

Joel and Clementine go to the ultimate extreme to erase their painful memories of one another—one not available to those of us outside a world created by Kaufman—but we’ve certainly become an overly medicated, overly stimulated, overly busy, overly shallow people attempting to avoid or numb pain. Denial. Distraction. Intoxication. What’s our drug of choice to anesthetize ourselves from the unwanted gifts life gives? How many of us would choose to erase painful memories if the technology existed?

Like too many lovers, Joel and Clementine too quickly take each other for granted, grow complacent, but their lack of passion is a personal failing, and not one of the relationship. Like so many, they “fell” in love with the romantic ideal they were projecting onto each other and expected far more from the other than the other has to give. And like so many couples, the very things that initially attract them to each other, later became the very things that repel them.

But there’s an essential sweetness to Joel and Clementine that fits so well with Alexander Pope’s poem that provides the title for the film:

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;

For all their flaws, Joel and Clementine are guileless.

Memory is magical—something “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” captures in dense and nuanced ways. And like the film, our memories are continually invading our present moments—informing, influencing, inspiriting.

Love, even our flawed, faulty, fragile love, is worth fighting for. Joel and Clementine realize this. I hope we will. As I watched the two lovers running away from the team trying to erase their memories of one another, I couldn’t help but think about the Song of Songs from the Hebrew Bible, and how its lovers, too, had to flee the city and those hostile to their love into the countryside to be alone.

Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away,
for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come.
Arise, my love, and come.

Wether Joel and Clementine realize it, wether you and I realize it, it’s not just our lovers calling to us, but love itself.
Love is relentless. Give in.
Love opens us to pain. Embrace and experience it.
Love is god. God is love. Accept it.
Fight for love as Joel and Clementine do. Move heaven and earth if you have to. What else is worth fighting for?