I really like the movie!
Story starts when Joel found out that his girlfriend, Clementine, erased all her memory of him. So he went to the same doctor to get his memory of her erased too. The erase procedure starts to work on the most recent memory first, then traces back to the older memory little by little. In Joel's most recent memory, he and Clementine fought and hated each other, the relationship is apparently failed. Then with the procedure moves on, Joel recalls all the good memories -- how they truly love each other, how happy they were being together. Then Joel shouted it out -- "I don't want it any more!" He doesn't want the good memories go away, he tried to escape and wake up from the procedure, but he can't. Finally it came to the last memory of how they first met, he gave up on trying to keep the memory from being erased, instead, he said, "We shall just enjoy it!", he enjoyed the last piece of his memory, and then let it go.
Relationship is just like this. Two people meet, attract to each other, fall into love, expose more to each other, stay together, then get bored with each other. All the things you like about each other at first now become shortcomings you cannot bear with any more. Then you start to fight with each other and then the relationship slips down. How to keep a good relationship? This is probably the forever topic in human society. There are many books, articles piling out the things you should do or should not do, the words you should say or should not say in a relationship. They are somewhat helpful. But still, so many relationships break up. Why? I don't have an answer. If I do, I probably will stay happily and do something else right now. :)
I think emotion is like a monster, it has its own mind. It's not controlled by you even though it belongs to you. You can learn from your own experience how to tame it, but sometime, it's out of your control and does things on its own, which could jeopardize the relationship you have. And it may because of your ego or pride, you didn't patch the damage in time, then the damage gets worse, and it cannot be repaired any more, the relationship dies at the end. How should we prevent this?
And the end of the movie, Joel woke up without the memory of Clementine. He took a sick day and went to the beach, there he met Clementine again who also doesn't have any memory of him at all. They were like 2 strangers; they are still attracted to each other on the first sight. Then everything started from beginning again. But somehow they both got the record of how they erase their memory from the doctor. They listened to the cassette -- it's what they told the doctor about the person they want to erase, all the things they don't like about each other. Then they both got hurt, Clementine tried to leave Joel again. She said she can't do this, because it will all come back, she's afraid that she will feel bored with him again. Then Joel said: "So what?!"
Yeah, So What! No pain, no gain. Pain probably is like a side effect from happiness. You have to get all or nothing. But if there is no pain, how do you know that is happiness? We shall just learn from all the pains we've been through, and keep happiness more often and longer in life. Never erase a memory, you can let certain things go, but never erase the whole thing. Memory is your own treasure, no matter good or bad. You enjoy the good ones, and learn from the bad ones. You grow up and become more mature with it. Then you may get a better relationship next time. :)
Picture taken at crater lake.
