Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) 💔📂📓

“Okay.”

Eternal Sunshine is both a hopeful & nihilistic film that explores a decaying relationship. Jim Carrey (Joel) & Kate Winslet (Clementine) play against their types — him playing quiet & shy, her playing someone bombastic. The pacing of this movie has them attracting & repelling each other on a loop and delivering career highlight performances.

Michel Gondry, the director, and Charlie Kaufman, the script writer, spent years developing the concept before securing funding. It wasn’t until both had established success in the industry that this script got the greenlight. You can see the best of both artists all over this movie — Kaufman’s typical melancholy & unreliable narrator are softened by Gondry’s signature optical illusions & visual ingenuity. Using natural lighting hidden around the sets, the camera would follow wherever the actors moved using makeshift dollies like sleds & wheelchairs. The textures & movements seem shaky, unpolished, but all serves the chaotic dream aesthetic of a mind falling to pieces.

I love how the visuals degrade as the film progresses & I love the analogue technology — everything is a messy tangle of wires, cassette tapes, manilla folders. The quaintess of the technology masks the violence that these characters inflict upon themselves, a violation couched in romance. How can anyone evolve, or make informed choices, if they don’t remember their mistakes?

There is some trademark early 00s “not gay” homophobia that is upsetting to watch in 2022. The film insists that this shy “gentle” man is straight despite his introspection, as if a kind thoughtful straight man is a novelty. It’s telling how these misconceptions of masculinity creep into art, even when the purpose of the art is to critique our concepts of masculinity.
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