Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Definitely different movie than "A Beautiful Mind".

I greatly enjoyed the film. My overall sense was that it was very positive. The overall sense is what I always react to after a viewing. This was a very potent piece of film making that definitely must be seen again, not just because it was so delirious and complex; it was that, but because it was so rich in imagery and deserves a second look.

Here are the strongest immediate impressions:

1. We spend the bulk of the story in the EVENTS. Mystery is a good device in a drama. We are forever piecing together the story of the relationship with their brilliant and not-so-brilliant moments, both positive and negative ping-ponging back and forth, and both reflecting the different perspectives of the characters. Like the underwear on the couch scene, then we are in the market hearing them have a disagreement about having a baby (another strong character-revealing moment), the jumping moments are reflective of the random way in which we process information. But it's the EVENTS that are the primary key to the overall direction of the story. They are actually the showpiece.

I viewed this film for the first time tonight with a large group of college students, and hung out to hear all the talk afterwards. If I had made a comment in the group I would have noted that there was a film in the 70s called Brainstorm. In that story, which stars a much younger looking Christopher Walken, the couple are on the skids and there is much stress. He is a scientist who has discovered how to record brain activity in such a way as a person can play it all back, and others can actually "be in" someone's mind that way. In any case, he makes a recording of all the great moments in his life that he's had with his spouse that are coming from inside his mind, and then he plays it back for her by having her put the transmission device on her head. She relives all those great moments from his perspective. It was a beautiful flashback sequence that spelled out their entire relationship of times past in a very effective way. In the story it saves their marriage.

In Spotless Mind this same type of device is used in a much more complex and drawn out kind of way. The many separate events of their lives are portrayed like a huge moving scrapbook. And the more we peel away the pages the more grey the backgrounds become in the "pictures", and the faster things begin to disappear around them. (I loved the fading book covers and signs in the bookstore near the end). We can focus more and more on the characters because the surroundings become more and more surreal and unstable. There is a house that had his mother's face in the window looking out at him. It becomes a paint-peeling shack. There is a big house that they almost spend the night in the first time around. In the latter part of the story it is falling apart as they converse. It's just downright cinema poetry at that point. Nice. But the filmmakers didn't stop at that. There is the car sequence as well, with Carey riding in it looking out while "frame" after "frame" of his life with her is going by, all mixed and intertwined, like the piles of filing cabinets in one room, and the car covered by a broken up shell of a house. It was all so fast I had to see that part again to take it in.

2. A device that this film uses to draw us into the story is first of all our natural desire for "the guy to get the girl", or vice verse. We naturally want people to meet, fall in love, and be together. It is the motivation for thousands of stories, and once again a simple human (Godly) drive is used to propel them together in this story. From the very first shot of him at the beach with her in the background at a distance(a cinematic device that is also foreshadow of what is to come - her being a part of his past and in his mind - there she is almost standing on his right shoulder) all the way through the train sequence, we are, with director Michael Gondry, putting them together. We want them to end up together. It doesn't matter how wildly different they are. It doesn't matter that she seems totally wigged and he seems totally inept. We are "with" her when she stops him from going out of the apartment the first time and asks him to call her. We are glad that they don't have just cheap sex and he doesn't succumb to her "part of the seduction" thing, almost throwing, well ok, throwing herself on him. We like it that he calls her right away, we feel his vulnerability and some innocence in that, and also wonder about rather it is going to work at that point. I feared at the moment he called her that he was going to get "burned" by the relationship, or hurt. When the title sequence came up late into the show it also took me back somewhat, and of course that whole reasoning didn't fit together until the end when he wakes up again and repeats his whole day. But no matter what, through thick and thin, we are WITH them because of the natural chemistry that is created in the story. The film maker is using that most natural tendency of our desire for a positive outcome here to perfection in keeping us glued to the plot. It also comes VERY strongly into play during the moments when he is struggling to wake up and stop the process. We want to as well. I could almost feel the suffocation. I felt my breath shorten with him, and realized I was holding my breath at the one moment when he first opens his eyes.

3. I don't believe that this film is about the ethical issue of the science of taking someone's memory, just like I don't believe that the movie Alien is about space monsters. That's just a story device, and a good one. This story is all about the preciousness of the moments we have with each other and how over time those moments can erode because we forget them in the immediacy of a bad time, or we allow the grievous side of a relationship to take precedence, as when he keeps repeating to himself, and hears the doctor's voice repeating to him the phrase of their interview, "She grew tired, and wanted a change".

4. Going back to the car sequence - when he is seeing a review of his memories going past - there was always a very powerful sense of the interrelatedness of everything. The theme of strong connectedness was brought out in 2 ways in the story. There was much juxtaposition of the "facts" of their lives intertwining. Events were also tied to objects. And there was also the very strong resistance that Joel had on his bed to the computer process, seeming to "erase" all their progress so they had to start over at another point. Those story points powerfully delivered the idea that good and bad are both taken together, so that in the climactic moment in the hallway we understand why they say "Ok" to each other, and start laughing at it all. She has just summed up her life's problems of why she is so impulsive and not a good match for him. She is prone to always changing her mind and being flighty, etc. The point is strongly made, I believe that good and bad, the relationship is worth it, even knowing that not all the pieces fit together.

5. I would agree that maybe caution is warned here about leaving the film in an existential state, and that maybe this is humanism in very fine moralistic form. We could easily assess this as feel-good material and dismiss it because of secular roots, but I can see that the foundational principals of what is concluded is nonetheless scripturally sound; spiritually grounded, in that relationships, although flawed, and equally so on both ends, are still worth having. It should also be noted that the ongoing relationship is stressed, and the desire to be together is confirmed.

6. The discussion group took us down the path of pain, and bringing up pain, and the fact that so many war veterans cannot talk about their experiences even to this day. It also noted, and very astutely, that the kind of pain that a veteran might have suffered during war might be one of those kinds of things that could be desirable to erase, or eradicate from memory. I'm not sure we spent enough time on the "pain" discussion. It is in fact through the painful parts of life that we learn and grow. And I'm not so sure that a war veteran should shut out all of that pain. That pain, unfortunately for them, is still part of who they are, and part of who we are. Without that pain we could easily rush into war again, forgetting how much our true worth is, or how precious life is, or the cost involved. Our being "dumped" by a loved one can make the next relationship more cautious, yes, but oh how much more rewarding is the time that it comes together and it begins to work. I want to discuss this more and can't right now, but this area also has to do with our ability to be honest and open in the body. The Church is very much like the secular world in this, in fact maybe worse, in that we cover up the sore spots, and the weaknesses, treating them as discolorations that need to be painted over.

Another later observation on the film:

Another huge point that only became clear after the film is over, at least for me is that the Carey character Joel we see in the beginning, and again in the end upon waking (both times) is MUCH LESS of a person than the person we meet at the party when he actually did meet Winslet for the first time. He was articulate to some degree, and conversant. And how about that Huckleberry Hound thing he did, remember? He did the proverbial joke you would do with someone named Clementine, but on the train he had NO IDEA who Clementine or Huckleberry WAS. NO RECOLLECTION. And here’s the catch – those memories of Huckleberry Hound were another part of him altogether from his childhood or elsewhere, not part of his relationship that was supposed to be erased with Clementine!! The other “attached” parts of him got erased too. Therefore I'd have to conclude that the story has much more riding under it than just a relationship story, as complex as that is. It is also a confirmation that we are interconnected through many and various ways and highly complex beings, and that love and relationships are intertwined with our whole self.

I’ve heard it said, and I’m sure you can collaborate this, that the longer that people spend together in marriage, the more they actually begin to physically look like each other to some degree. The effects that we have on each other are so much more complex than selective memory blots.

When we meet Joel in the awakened state he is almost comatose, lacking depth and emotion, not being able to get beyond the word “nice”. He is thinking to himself that he always messes up with the ladies, etc. But as it turns out he wasn’t all that messed up to begin with. He was definitely severely lessened by the erasure operation. You notice that the colors are extremely muted in the very first scene (that we see twice); the banged up car, the interior of the apartment looking so normal in medium shot, the dull colors of the beach scene shot on a grey day, and the train station. And then into his life (again, as we find out) comes Tangerine, and “Caustic Blue” or whatever that color was she had in her hair. Later when they are shot in their various scenes together there is a different film stock used altogether. The overhead shot of them on the ice is very vibrant and high contrast verses the muted faster stock used for the initial outside footage. I’d say that the way that the high-contrast indoor footage in the apartment, or on the couch together, or wherever, in bed, and please notice the high colors of the sheets and the shots under the covers when they are looking at each other in that little “cave” world enclosed by those covers, is all meant to contrast with the footage “without” her, or whenever in the memory segments she is disappearing. I’d be willing to bet that if we went shot by shot we would find those differences. Kudos to the cinematographer. Of course much of that work can be done post, but it’s always better to do it with the film stock original if you can. Gives a nicer look. This would be one case where film stock (original or post) played a major role in the development and affirmation of character AND plot.