Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless MindWhen we fall in love, we allow ourselves to be a part of something which changes our perception, our view of the world into something different, where we restructure ourselves, root ourselves into a state of mind with someone else, of someone else--they become a part of us. When we fall out of love, it is not as though that world never was, it is not as though our world has been partially erased or uprooted; that memory, that part of us is never really gone, no matter the extremes we may seek to quell the pain...because you cannot scrub away or remove the stain left behind...not without some brain damage.
|
|
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a love story, but one told through memory...or more accurately, the lack thereof. Joel Barris (Jim Carrey) is a "lonely hearts" kind of guy--shy, soft-spoken, tries to be nice. Clementine (Kate Winslet) is a vibrant, scattered woman, her daring and thirst for alcohol a defense against the self-consciousness eating her up. The two divergent souls meet on a train coming back from Montauk, sharing a stilted but probing conversation--Clementine doing most of the probing--as they begin to test the waters, meeting someone, trying to make that elusive connection which we sometimes take for granted in our lives. Joel is no Romeo, but it's clear that he is craving love, that he--like Clementine--is lonely, and that somehow, there is a connection between the two of them which is more than the apparent "opposites attract" cliche. But Joel has been hurt before; prior to meeting Clementine on the train--on Valentine's Day of all days--Joel had undergone a rather experimental kind of "treatment", the kind which has left him with a part of himself missing. See, Joel's sorrow at having lost someone from his life--and the grief from having been forgotten by the woman he loved had led him to seek the counsel of a unique medical group called Lacuna, Inc. Under the direction of Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson). Patients of Lacuna, Inc. undergo a radical kind of therapy where they can remove the memories of someone from their minds, as though one were to go through a document with liquid paper, redacting heartache. Out of grief, out of bitterness, those feelings of rejection which come at the end of a relationship ending poorly, Joel undergoes the process, a kind of mnemonic suicide; but Joel has second thoughts in medias res. As a result, Joel ends up at war with his own mind, desperately clinging to the memories he sought to remove, trying to cling to the precious (and even painful) moments he shared with his love before they are gone forever.
Watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, one senses the impermanence of love and life, the two intertwined forces of the universe which make our world complete. Joel's memories are ones of times spent with the woman he loves, but who has rejected him, so now those memories--once charged with happiness--are now monuments of devastation, markers which toll the knell of what he has lost--the gravestones of his heartscape. I look at Joel and can sympathize with his sadness, his anger, the feelings which swell like the tide and reach up over our ankles, then our knees, higher still until they threaten to pull us under. Joel recalls moments he wishes he could take back, wishes he could remember differently than how they happened. But memories are a funny thing--we can change them, but deep down, we know it to be a lie, and the lie doesn't change our world...no, that is but madness, even if a petite delusion, and it is no real life. Regret is an undertow, but one which is hard to resist. I've felt a moment similar to Joel when he recalls that moment at the beach house, after the night of the bonfire on the beach, when he wishes he had stayed at the abandoned beach house with the crazy girl who wanted to just be with him...but he fled, afraid. Afraid of his own fears, his doubts, his insecurities, maybe more, but afraid...Joel wishes, thinks, believes that if he would have but taken a different path, rehearsed his world around what the result could have been rather than what was, things would have been different, and he would not have lost the love he so desperately wanted to keep but couldn't. But contrary to the promises of Lacuna, Inc., we cannot change the past--we must move on; acceptance is the moral buried in the sand--those little rocks which crunch under our toes--a message which waits for us to but claim it. For a decidedly surreal film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is occupied by convincing characters. Both Joel and Clementine are identifiable, deeply real people, individuals whom we might know, be friends with, or even fall in love with...they might even be us, if we let them. I think that everyone feels lonely sometimes, that we all want to be loved, but it's very hard to be honest, to open up and just tell someone what we are really thinking, even if it hurts, because we try too hard to be nice, or we don't want to be hurt first, so we lash out instead. We reveal those insecurities to shrinks, to doctors on a cassette tape--in the strictest confidentiality, of course--but bottle it up all the same. It's not really that we hate the people we get involved with, but that we hate that we cannot find the way to be ourselves with them completely, for fear of being rejected. It's kind of a miracle when two people can fall in love and discover that they can still share their deepest fears and memories with one another and realize that in the end, we are not so different and that we all really want the same thing: love; something to remember.
Recommended for: The inner romantic in us all--insecurities, faults and all. The film asks us to evaluate how we see ourselves and how we see the ones we love. And if we find we can accept the hurt that comes from it, that we grow rather than shrink in the sunshine of that tilling of our heart; we are stronger for it.
Watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, one senses the impermanence of love and life, the two intertwined forces of the universe which make our world complete. Joel's memories are ones of times spent with the woman he loves, but who has rejected him, so now those memories--once charged with happiness--are now monuments of devastation, markers which toll the knell of what he has lost--the gravestones of his heartscape. I look at Joel and can sympathize with his sadness, his anger, the feelings which swell like the tide and reach up over our ankles, then our knees, higher still until they threaten to pull us under. Joel recalls moments he wishes he could take back, wishes he could remember differently than how they happened. But memories are a funny thing--we can change them, but deep down, we know it to be a lie, and the lie doesn't change our world...no, that is but madness, even if a petite delusion, and it is no real life. Regret is an undertow, but one which is hard to resist. I've felt a moment similar to Joel when he recalls that moment at the beach house, after the night of the bonfire on the beach, when he wishes he had stayed at the abandoned beach house with the crazy girl who wanted to just be with him...but he fled, afraid. Afraid of his own fears, his doubts, his insecurities, maybe more, but afraid...Joel wishes, thinks, believes that if he would have but taken a different path, rehearsed his world around what the result could have been rather than what was, things would have been different, and he would not have lost the love he so desperately wanted to keep but couldn't. But contrary to the promises of Lacuna, Inc., we cannot change the past--we must move on; acceptance is the moral buried in the sand--those little rocks which crunch under our toes--a message which waits for us to but claim it. For a decidedly surreal film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is occupied by convincing characters. Both Joel and Clementine are identifiable, deeply real people, individuals whom we might know, be friends with, or even fall in love with...they might even be us, if we let them. I think that everyone feels lonely sometimes, that we all want to be loved, but it's very hard to be honest, to open up and just tell someone what we are really thinking, even if it hurts, because we try too hard to be nice, or we don't want to be hurt first, so we lash out instead. We reveal those insecurities to shrinks, to doctors on a cassette tape--in the strictest confidentiality, of course--but bottle it up all the same. It's not really that we hate the people we get involved with, but that we hate that we cannot find the way to be ourselves with them completely, for fear of being rejected. It's kind of a miracle when two people can fall in love and discover that they can still share their deepest fears and memories with one another and realize that in the end, we are not so different and that we all really want the same thing: love; something to remember.
Recommended for: The inner romantic in us all--insecurities, faults and all. The film asks us to evaluate how we see ourselves and how we see the ones we love. And if we find we can accept the hurt that comes from it, that we grow rather than shrink in the sunshine of that tilling of our heart; we are stronger for it.