For some unknown reason, these two have been my favorite films. Maybe its the idea of an unknown and non-designated journey of romance that gripped my heart like any romantic fools would (which I don't consider myself to be, sorry!). And at the same time wouldn't one like the option of simply getting rid of bad memories...just ask some heartbroken person and you get your answer!
Watching the film, Serendipity, has always always always moved me. Maybe, for a change, giving up controls of your life in the hands of destiny, fate, kismet (or whatever you would want to call it) and letting it ride you, is an exhilarating thought. A movie is, although, a controlled environment, where kismet cannot play havoc as it often does in real life. It can be a place where flowers bloom and never wither, a place where lover's meet but never part, where things go right irrelevant to the fact that you made a wrong turn.
But at the same time, a film can also be a place where it can be chaotic, raining shell-shocks rather than petals, with people parting ways without knowing the whys. Such a film, that gave me solace at one time, is the Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (ESSM). The film is based on the idea that the memories of a love turned sour can be erased allowing you to seek love anew and afresh. What an experiment on life...simply marvelous!
I find both these films opposite to each other and yet so similar. In Serendipity, one gives up controlling one's love-life....only to find it with its memories winding back to them. ESSM takes the cake with trying to do the opposite, to control and erase the memory and the experiment failing with re-uniting the lovers and they in turn take a chance on love...again!
I find Life to be an anti-thesis with intricate layers of decisions. Decisions that run the course of our life and yet we are led to believe that despite everything life is decided. In my years lived, I have been playing a constant tug-of-war (or tug-of-love, however you would like to see) with life with me trying to go the opposite at every turn of my life. One thing I have begun to understand is that life makes the allowances, which we believe to be our effort, to make our own path. Or maybe we are walking along with life to build the path for both of us to walk together. Neither of us know it just yet.
