Who needs personality typing...
May. 13th, 2004 07:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cybermule...when you have surprising accurate quizzes. A spirograph, huh? Couldn't have put myself better myself :P
Anyway, talking of all things tripped out, on to the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...
Putting aside the effect of absorbing company, this was a brilliant film. Right from the very first minute I became completely immersed in it. If you're thinking of seeing it, you've probably already sussed out the trippy precept, but if you've been living on a different planet, a quiet and introverted guy, played surprisingly well by Jim Carrey, undergoes special treatment to blot out the memory of his tempestuous relationship with the eccentric Kate Winslet.
I'd have to confess to not keeping entirely up with the choppy timeline at times - this reminded me of memento and particularly vanilla sky at times, and like both of those, I think I'd get even more out of a second watch. The comparison with Vanilla Sky seems particularly pertinent because of the trippy style of photography. Not trippy in the same way in both films - Vanilla Sky is a lot more polished, although I suspect that ESOTSM probably had nearly as much work put into it to achieve that slightly intimate home-movie look.
And the thing I most loved was the shockingly realistic disintegration of what seems at the beginning to be a perfect relationship. The way you slowly descend into the bitching and the complaining and the not talking to each other when you eat out. And the way that when it's gone, you suddenly forget all that, you gain selective memory and focus on the good bits, the brilliance that you brought to each other's lives. So in some ways I actually found it quite poignant and sad, and the ending, in my opinion, reflected that in it's ambiguity.
I think it also gave me a lot to think about in the nature of memories. I read somewhere recently that memories are just you remembering the last time you remembered the thing.
*pauses to briefly boggle*
And I think that the film highlighted how incredibly your sense of self is wrapped up in your memories (*), yet how impermanent and elusive they can be. You could lose them in a single night of heavy drinking :) And how much of yourself is really left when they're all gone? And how much have you twisted them round and round to suit what you *want* to remember happened?
So, in short, a beautiful and engrossing film that I want to watch again right now!
(*) = as a random thought, every person with whom you spend part of your life, to some extent, make a part of you. You are, after, the sum of your thoughts and experiences. It's both an exhortation to spend your life wisely and beautifully, and a a small compensation for those people who are gone.
*pauses again to reflect that in an odd way, this is one of the best weeks ever*
Anyway, talking of all things tripped out, on to the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...
Putting aside the effect of absorbing company, this was a brilliant film. Right from the very first minute I became completely immersed in it. If you're thinking of seeing it, you've probably already sussed out the trippy precept, but if you've been living on a different planet, a quiet and introverted guy, played surprisingly well by Jim Carrey, undergoes special treatment to blot out the memory of his tempestuous relationship with the eccentric Kate Winslet.
I'd have to confess to not keeping entirely up with the choppy timeline at times - this reminded me of memento and particularly vanilla sky at times, and like both of those, I think I'd get even more out of a second watch. The comparison with Vanilla Sky seems particularly pertinent because of the trippy style of photography. Not trippy in the same way in both films - Vanilla Sky is a lot more polished, although I suspect that ESOTSM probably had nearly as much work put into it to achieve that slightly intimate home-movie look.
And the thing I most loved was the shockingly realistic disintegration of what seems at the beginning to be a perfect relationship. The way you slowly descend into the bitching and the complaining and the not talking to each other when you eat out. And the way that when it's gone, you suddenly forget all that, you gain selective memory and focus on the good bits, the brilliance that you brought to each other's lives. So in some ways I actually found it quite poignant and sad, and the ending, in my opinion, reflected that in it's ambiguity.
I think it also gave me a lot to think about in the nature of memories. I read somewhere recently that memories are just you remembering the last time you remembered the thing.
*pauses to briefly boggle*
And I think that the film highlighted how incredibly your sense of self is wrapped up in your memories (*), yet how impermanent and elusive they can be. You could lose them in a single night of heavy drinking :) And how much of yourself is really left when they're all gone? And how much have you twisted them round and round to suit what you *want* to remember happened?
So, in short, a beautiful and engrossing film that I want to watch again right now!
(*) = as a random thought, every person with whom you spend part of your life, to some extent, make a part of you. You are, after, the sum of your thoughts and experiences. It's both an exhortation to spend your life wisely and beautifully, and a a small compensation for those people who are gone.
*pauses again to reflect that in an odd way, this is one of the best weeks ever*
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-05-13 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-13 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-24 02:31 pm (UTC)I think it also gave me a lot to think about in the nature of memories. I read somewhere recently that memories are just you remembering the last time you remembered the thing.
I've heard that as well, I believe on the BBC show I spoke of in my last Salvia trip. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if that is in fact the case.
I did an experiment a couple days ago, where I tried to remember a memory of something that I never had remembered before. Hoping to find a memory of something that the last time I thought of, was at the moment it was being experienced. Needless to say, I failed. I just could never think of something I never remembered before, obviously because even as you experienced something that first time, it was recorded to your memory likely in the same way. Come to think of it, I'm almost certain that "memories are just you remembering the last time you remembered the thing." I can't really imagine it making sense any other way. *boggle*
And how much of yourself is really left when they're all gone?
Very interesting. I need to read more on Alzheimer's. Everyone is all sad and everything for people who have it, because it seems that the person they knew no longer exists. However the human being is still alive, the person still has thoughts and feelings. Only the memories are gone. It just goes to show, as you say, how central memories are to who we are. *boggle* again.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-06 12:45 pm (UTC)merci.
Come to think of it, I'm almost certain that "memories are just you remembering the last time you remembered the thing." I can't really imagine it making sense any other way.
*nods* I was trying to think this out in a logical way, and came to the same conclusion. If we compare the brain roughly to a computer, what would be the sense of storing both the memory, and the memory of the memory? It probably just overwrites each time, you know? Of course, that opens a whole bunch of questions on the neurological nature of memories that I can't even begin to answer...
I need to read more on Alzheimer's.
Let me know if you find anything good. My nan developed something similar, but way more intense, before she died, and seeing her memories go was like watching weeds being ripped up, yanking more and more root up out of the soil, neverending. And it really was like she was gone. I didn't think about it much at the time (too painful, too much other hassle), but it seems weird that you are so defined by your memories. Or at least, they are the bit that somehow defines you as a person in the eyes of other people.