The Best Actor in the Vase of Meiyu

Chapter 1322 Memory Chasing Light
Dazzled, overwhelmed——

The movie is like a high-speed spinning light gyroscope. The colorful halo forms a vortex of light and shadow, drawing everyone at the Angelica Film Center into it. They are dizzy in fantasy, memory and reality, and their imagination breaks through boundaries and walls and travels freely.

The first part disrupts the timeline, with the past, present and future intertwined; the second part breaks the spatial barriers, wandering between reality and memory.

Meanwhile, two staff members of the Forgetfulness Clinic, Stan and Patrick, arrive at Joel's apartment and begin deleting Clementine's memories one by one.

Patrick, the employee who had been hiding his true identity, finally revealed his true identity. He was the baby-faced guy who knocked on Joel's car window at the beginning of the movie. Obviously, Patrick doesn't like Joel and has been attacking and complaining about Joel's apartment in an attempt to belittle Joel.

Intermittently and fragmentarily, Patrick and Stan's conversation broke through the barrier of the "memory erasing machine" and echoed in Joel's memory world like a voice-over. Patrick finally revealed the answer:
He fell in love with Clementine while erasing her memory.

So, he took advantage of Clementine's weakness, swooped in to fill the gap, and started dating Clementine. He was the "new boyfriend" hiding in the shadows when Joel went to Barnes & Noble to look for Clementine.

All the clues are connected together.

At the same time, Joel entered his own memory and screened the memories bit by bit in a retrospective manner, deleting all the memories related to Clementine.

First it was the Forgetfulness Clinic. After all, he went there because of Clementine, and the memories of Stan, Mary, and the doctor were all wiped.

Then comes the last memory before Clementine disappears on Valentine's Day eve, which is also the night before Clementine leaves in anger and chooses to completely erase Joel.

Clementine showed up, with a bright orange and pink hairdo, but she was dirty and greasy like a dried mop, and fell drunkenly on the sofa, telling Joel that she scratched his car -

The serious scratch on the car door that was completely dented was not from the neighbor, but was left by Clementine when she parked her car and drove close to the safety pin.

Huh!
The Angelica Film Center exclaimed collectively, including Blair.

What if the scratch on the car door that Joel saw at the beginning of the movie didn’t happen first, but happened after the two broke up and Clementine and Joel both had their memories erased?

Wait, wait, how should the timeline be arranged?
Blair had no time to think deeply, she had been completely caught up in this storm of time and space, like a tiny being standing on the earth looking up at the entire universe.

Karen looked at Blair, her face full of confusion: Obviously, she didn't keep up with the pace, but she couldn't be blamed, because the amount of information was really too huge and too overwhelming, rushing into her head all at once, and she was really overwhelmed.

Moreover, the movie is obviously deliberately disrupting the order——

The camera is sometimes focused on Stan and Patrick, and sometimes on Joel; sometimes the present Joel appears in the memory space of the past and coexists with Joel, and sometimes Joel, who is immersed in his memory, can hear the voice-over interference of Stan and Patrick's conversation.

Memory and reality are intertwined, the present and the past are parallel, and the rapid editing and switching completely break the order of time and space. The amount of detailed information is exploding, and the whole world is spinning at high speed, making it difficult to keep up.

Blair patted Karen's knee gently, signaling her to be patient and watch the movie first.

Pay full attention; even the slightest distraction may cause you to miss the point.

Joel and Clementine have an argument.

What made Joel angry was not that Clementine crashed the car, nor that she came back at three in the morning, or even that Clementine might hurt others and herself by driving under the influence, but Clementine's casual and indulgent lifestyle. The differences between them were gradually widening.

Clementine exposes him and he is worried that she might have someone else outside.

Joel calmed down and said calmly in a disappointed tone, "Look, Clay, I assume you had sex with someone else outside tonight. Aren't you used to making others like you this way?" The whole audience was silent.

Even Karen covered her mouth, because that's how Joel and Clementine fell in love, Clementine invited Joel home for a drink late at night, and even invited Joel to stay overnight, but now it has become a weapon for Joel to attack Clementine, who he thinks is a casual woman.

Time, press the pause button at this moment.

There was silence on the big screen. Neither Joel nor Clementine moved, not even making eye contact.

Outside the big screen, there was silence, with only the roar of engines on both sides whizzing past. The rough and grainy texture of the picture made people feel sad for some reason.

The previous second was full of happiness and sweetness, with hearts pounding and hearts beating fast; the next second was a late-night quarrel, with both parties hurting each other bloodily.

How did they get to this point?

The film completely disrupts the narrative order and the way it presents the whole story, allowing the feeling of powerlessness and sighing to be completely released, pausing time.

Clementine left, without looking back, furious.

Even though Joel chased her out, apologized and tried to keep her, it was of no avail. In the end, she became angry and said angrily that he would also delete his memory and completely erase her from his life.

The Joel of the past and the Joel of the present overlapped silently.

Then, Joel returned to the river of memory and, following Stan's operation, recalled their quarrels, their estrangement, their friction in reverse. Those insignificant and trivial things had long been buried in their daily lives, sending out signals that made them distance themselves little by little.

And, more than that.

Clementine wants to get married and have children, she wants to have a future; but Joel thinks they are not ready, Clementine disagrees.

"You're not ready."

This gave Joel pause, "Do you really think you can take care of a child?"

This one sentence ignited the powder keg, and the two people started arguing in Chinatown.

However, not everything is disastrous.

Going back in time, there were fewer quarrels and more sweetness.

Joel still remembers the day when Clementine dyed her hair orange. Clementine was so happy that she danced around the house with her arms open, as if she had all the children in the world.

That day, after an intense exercise, they lay in the quilt, like children hiding in a quilt castle, having a little world of their own.

"Joel, am I ugly?"

Joel still remembers the fragility and uneasiness in Clementine's eyes. The sunlight penetrated the quilt, and the warm orange light fell on her face; but he felt as if he saw an angel.

(End of this chapter)