Film Critique: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Questions from "self" unit:
Who am I?
It is hard to answer the question. I can state some of my characteristics. However, when it comes to the question, "Who am I?", I am not able to answer it. For instance, I do not really know why I was born and what I am living for. I believe that one of the aims of our lives is to find out who we are. The self could vary depending on the situation. In other words, our selfs are gained through our experience. Therefore, I insist that there is no answer for the question probably for everyone because we could change a lot as long as we are alive.

Is there a self that I can control?
I think that I can control some of my selfs. For example, I myself made a decision to study in the United States. I think through experience people gain, they learn how to control themselves. Interestingly, people manage to make easy decisions in their daily lives such as how long they sleep, what they eat and where they go. However, none of them is able to control all of our selfs. Our decisions are deeply related to their mind, which is gained thorough experience and memories. Taken all together, I claim that it is essential for people to experience a lot in order to control selfs and make wise decisions.

Film Critique Questions:
What is the significance of the Title?
Even though both Joel and Clementine decided to erase their memories in order to get spotless mind, they started to be attracted to each other again. The title mentions the importance of memories, which could become the base of ourselves. Even after they got spotless mind, their memories were still in their mind because the memories had already become a part of their selfs.

What is the message to the audience?
I think that the message of the movie to the audience is the significance of memories including unpleasant ones. I agreed with Joel's realization. He realized how big his love is in the process of erasing his memories. I also would not be willing to erase my bad memories even if I got a chance. Because of those memoris, I have been able to make more efforts to secceed and I have learned a lot. This movie allowed me to think more about self.

The Significance of Human Nature

I chose the song "Let it be", which is one of the most famous songs by the Beatles. This song effectively expresses the human nature. Every single person is expected to live in society and therefore, as we learned, we are supposed to act "the social me", which is normally different depending on the situation. What is more, all of us are likely to face a variety of problems in our social lives to a certain extent. For that case, this song recomends you to be natural. I believe that it is because humans are selfless, peaceable and untroubled by nature as Rousseau claimed. However, this human nature, which is given by god, is likely to be destroyed by experiences which are brought out through society. Consequently, I claim that the song explains the significance of being natural in order to escape from the trouble.

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

The Beatles. "Let it be." Let it Be. Capitol, 1970.
The Beatles-Let It Be

Focusing on people's conversation

I belong to two speech communities, which are japanese and English. As I am living among people who speak English, I regularly use English to communicate with my surroundings. However, I studied in Australia for a while. So even though I do not consider myself to be a high level speaker of English, I sometimes recognize the difference between Aussie English and American English. For instance, I tend to say "cheers, mate" instead of "thanks buddy" as well as "no worries" instead of "you are welcome"which seem to sound strange for Americans.
On the other hand, it is also true that since I miss speaking Japanese and of course it is easy for me to speak it, I tend to denpend on my ability in Japanese, which could disturb my improvement in English.

On Thursday, I and my friends talked about our backgrounds including languages, what our hometowns look like and so on. I observed how my friends expressed themselves in terms of their tones, volumes and communication techniques.

Settings and Scene
The conversation took place in my room on Thursday. It started when I showed my friends the pictures of my house in Japan. All of us shared questions and answers in a friendly way.

Participants
While one person was speaking, others were listening to the one carefully except for the time they had different opinions. We kind of took turns expressing ourselves.

Instrumentalities
When they had different opinions, they tended to speak loud and their tones became higher. I think it was because of their emotion to tell others their ideas. Since we are all friends, we spoke in a casual way. Also, I noticed that while we concentrate on the conversation, we are less likely to care about grammer.

Ends
It was a good occasion to more clearly understand each other since our backgrounds are directly related to our charactaristics. What was more, we showed our respects for different cultures.

Esthr. 25 March 2005. Online image. flickr. retrieved from: http://www/flickr.com/photos/edyson/7438727/