Coffeequeen and I went to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind last night. I loved, loved, loved the movie. I don't think that I can express how much I enjoyed this film. It captivated me right from the get go. It surpassed my expectations. It gave me insight into every character on screen. It gave me little snippets of every single character's life, and made me actually care about them. It made me care about the outcome of this film.

It erased the dissapointment I felt at coming out of Hellboy.

Don't get me wrong, Jays ('cause I know your reading this) and Animal, I found it visually superb and stunning, and the action was great and adrenaline producing, sure. But at the end, I really wasn't caring about the outcome so much. I was not pulled in by any of the characters. And the relation point for the audience, the newbie to the world? Well, we didn't get any character exploration of this FBI agent assigned to the freak squad at all. I felt detached from the movie. It was a good popcorn movie, to be sure. But it had nothing at all to captivate me.

I guess I'm just a movie snob, and I want it all! I want visual style, and I want story substance.

Sunshine had all this for me, and more. Wonderful actors to bring all these characters to life. In addition, it left me with too many thoughts.

There were ideas in the film that just begged for philospohical reflection, including quotes from Nietzche. And I've been full of philosophical reflection ever since. I've been thinking about the nature of memory, and if you really could erase someone from your life completely. I'm reminded of Eddy from the movie Threesome, and his last words, words about how someone can be a necessary and integral part of your life one day, and completely gone the next. And, as much as that is often very true, can you really erase all memory of them from your mind? Is this reasonable?

Sometimes, people are such an integral part of your life that I feel this would be truly impossible. Sometimes, they colour every moment in your life. Even if they aren't with you, they effect you, and you might think about them.

If that much of your life was removed, what would the result be? And what kind of person would you be? I feel that every person that gets involved in our lives change us. Even if the change is so minute as that we never notice it. I still believe it is there. If we erased a person, would the changes from their presence in our lives dissapear as well?

See, way too many thoughts.

The film also made me think about fate, and our ability to escape destiny. Can we go against our fate? If something is destined to happen, can we escape it? If it is something we do not desire, or desire no longer, can we run from it? Or, is it true that no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try to turn from it, our true destiny will find us?

I don't want to expound on these ideas, as to do so might spoil the film, but I just wanted to put them out there, because they were clogging up my brain, and with writing my brain seems to relieve itself of the thoughts. Make of it what you will.

Speaking of Writing

I have written Chapter Ten of First and Last and am just waiting for it to return from my lovely new Beta reader Desmodus so that I can post it.

I'm working on it, Stormy. I promise!
Posted by Arieanna at 8:31 AM |