It's Thursday again? I asked that question when I watched my last film, but
the answer is different this time. It really is Thursday. What a coincidence!
This is one of my favourite films, third in
my top 100 list. I've watched and reviewed it a few times. In the past I've concentrated on
the film's philosophical aspects. Today I'll apply it to myself.
In 2002 I married someone, a beautiful young woman called Nicola. It was my
second marriage, and I expected things to be better the second time round. I
was wrong. It was Hell. We had one year of happiness and three years of
suffering. It was all about drugs. A year after the marriage one of Nicola's
friends stayed with us for a few days. Her boyfriend, Alexis Thomas, was a
drug dealer. He said that Nicola should try crack, just once, to see what it's
like. When it comes to drugs there's no such thing as "just once". She was
hooked immediately.
At first she enjoyed smoking crack. After a while she realised it was harmful
to her, and she wanted to stop, but she couldn't. I felt it was my duty to
help her, but I couldn't. Her setbacks became my setbacks. In late 2006 there
was a turning point. One evening she rang Alexis to tell him she wanted to buy
crack from him. I locked the doors, took away her key, and I said I wouldn't
let him in. She threatened to call the police and tell them I'd hit her.
I thought she was bluffing, but she really did it. When the police came she
was lying on the floor in the living room, saying she was too injured to get
up after I'd been beating her.
The police arrested me. I was put in a cell briefly, but then they let me out
and said that it was obvious from the start that I hadn't hit her. There were
no bruises, and the telephone cable (landline) was too short for her to reach
from her position lying on the floor. They'd only arrested me to keep
the peace. The police station was too far away from my home, so I had to stay
until morning. I sat playing chess with a police officer all night. When I got
home Alexis had already left, but she was high on crack.
That incident scared me. If it happened again, the police might believe her
next time. I didn't want a criminal record, so I gave up trying to help her
and planned to leave her as soon as possible.
That brings me to the film. Would I want to forget Nicola? Would I want to
erase her from my memory? (I'm assuming that my readers have seen the film and
know what I'm talking about). My answer is a clear No. We had some beautiful
times together, times which I never want to forget. Admittedly, the good times
were few, but I'd like to hold on to them.
What about the bad times? There were many, many bad incidents in our marriage.
The one I named above wasn't even the worst, even though it was the one that
persuaded me to leave her. Some of my friends know more details, and they're
shocked. Nicola made me suffer terribly, and I consider marrying her to be the
worst mistake of my life. But do I want to forget what happened? In a way I
do. They were things that no man should have to experience. On the other hand,
remembering these experiences protects me from similar mistakes in the future.
If I'd erased Nicola from my memory, I might have met her again a year later
and got into a relationship with her again. Or maybe not. As far as I know,
she's never overcome her addiction to crack. I would never have fallen in love
with a drug addict. But I still like to remember the bad times as a warning. I
try not to think about them. I push the memories into the back of my mind, but
they're still there if I need to remember.
In 2012 my friend
Brian Farmer was murdered. Four suspects were arrested, three men and a woman, but they weren't named
until the trial began. One of my friends said to me,
"I think the woman is Nicola". As it turned out, it wasn't her, but it
shows how bad her reputation was.
In the film Mary Svevo (Kirsten Dunst) begins as a strong supporter of the
memory erasure technique, and she ends up rejecting it. She was right to
change her mind.
