Take 87: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
In July, 2015, the BBC released a list of the 100 Greatest American Films, curated by polling critics all over the world. I’m watching them and writing about them as a form of self taught film school. This week, in honor of the year we want to forget, we’re doing number 87: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. — directed by Michel Gondry. As always, there will be spoilers.
I don’t know if this quite equates a confession, but I must start by saying that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is my favorite kind of film. I love bold swings and directors talented enough to pull it off. I think the best movies are the ones that are the most original, shocking and teasing the audience. Recent examples of this type of movie were helmed by Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, The Favourite) or Spike Jonze (Her, Being John Malkovich), what these directors have in common with Eternal Sunshine’s Michael Gondry is that they are endowed with daring uniqueness, daring the audience to keep up with their visions and to trust that there will be a payoff even if they can’t see the track laid out before them. In my opinion, the best films are symphonic, layering complementary and competing elements to illicit tension when needed, and relatability when needed, layering in soothing tones when needed, like the maestro playing on our conscious and subconscious expectations. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind lures us in with humor and romance, then gives us a guide in Jim Carrey’s Joel Barish to hold our hand as we navigate the confusing annals of the narrative.
The story goes that Boris meets Clementine (Kate Winslett) in Montauk, they fall in love, they eventually despise each other, to the point that after a tumultuous break up they are both compelled to have their memories of each other erased from their past. Of course, it’s not that simple. The writer of this film, Charlie Kaufman (who, I didn’t realize until I just looked him up, also wrote Being John Malkovich) has a lot more in store for us, but the ability to take the classic story arc (meet cute, love, tribulation, fork in the road, reunited / torn apart) and adds another rung in the ladder that is both logical and a wild leap in orientation.
Kaufman and Gondry create an atmosphere that presents each moment as slightly askew. We know something isn’t quite right from the beginning, even before we know that this is a world where memory alteration is possible, and easily attainable, but not widely known. This is due in part to the asynchronicity of the film — but is also reinforced by subtle detailing in the blocking and cinematography, especially as we continue to realize that we’re accompanying Boris through the realization that a part of himself is slipping away forever. This is most obvious toward the end when Boris and Clementine grasp tightly onto their fraying connection and break into a house on the beach. Boris is framed in spotted beams of light, visible for fractions of seconds and then subsumed by the darkness. Clementine is followed by an inexplicable spotlight, a mental addition to the memory on behalf of Boris, who bolsters her temporal presence and illuminates Clementinian moments before the house dissolves.
The combination of overt and furtive nods to Boris’s psychological makeup and total self awareness make the film sing. Part of this is done from a distance, as we see the relationship milestones shaken up and rearranged.
Without the perfunctory cause and effect we’re accustomed to, our allegiances bounce between the characters, and a mosaic is created of their time together — instead of a conclusion.
When Boris awakens within his consciousness and realizes what’s happening to him, the psychological depth is twisted from suggested to direct. We know that Boris is not impulsive because he tells us in the very first voiceover. We know that he’s straight laced, a wet blanket, and is constantly at odds with Clementine’s free spirited recklessness. She wants more from him and he wants her to pull back. When he sees the summary of their relationship and regrets his decision to extract her from his past, they attempt to save her in his mind by delving into the deepest recesses of the places he could never bring her in reality. At first, he traces her on top of important women in his life, a Freudian knee jerk that is comical but too surface level to provide adequate cover. She implores him to go deeper, to conceal her in the areas of shame and humiliation that he had buried away in hopes of escaping the pain haunting those memories. Throughout this experience Boris’s memory of Clementine accesses the parts of him she could never reach in their physical existence.
And therein lies the pivotal question in Eternal Sunshine, does removing the memory of pain, and any associated goodness with those moments of pain, neutralize the consequences of failed risks? Is it freeing to forget?
I think what we learn from Boris and Clementine is that our memories, both good and shameful and pain inducing, make up our essential beings. We are our memories, and when we choose to subjugate some, we are killing pieces of ourselves. We are shaped by these moments still and we carry them with us even in spite of our best efforts, but they are dead weight that remains inaccessible. Coincidentally, I just watched and wrote about The Lion King, which poses essentially the same question. “Hakuna matata” is at its heart a variation of Pope’s quote, “How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot! / The world forgetting, by the world forgot. / Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! / Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d ..”.
It’s not quite suggesting that ignorance is bliss, but that willful ignorance is unsustainable. The past will exact its tax.
Meanwhile, as we experience the erasure of Clementine in Boris’s mind, there is the comic relief of the unfocused buffoons performing the procedure. There is the predatory Patrick, played by Elijah Wood, who became obsessed with Clementine when she initially had the procedure to remove Boris, and who stole her underwear. There is a sweet dynamic between Mark Ruffalo’s Stan Fink and Kirsten Dunst’s Mary, who are clearly in the lustful elation of the early phase of the relationship. And there is the Dr. Howard Mierzwiak, played by Tom Wilkinson, who leads the operation. Their stories provide respite from the intensity of Boris’s mental intervention, and at times felt irrelevant or unnecessary.
Again, Gondry cashes in on those expectations. On one hand, Patrick and Dr. Howard demonstrates the questionable ethics of mental manipulation as Patrick uses his privileged knowledge of Clementine’s past to form a dubious relationship with her, manipulating her senses. It is this revelation that sparks the moment of realization in Boris’s mind that he is outside of reality. The reveal about the relationship between Dr. Howard and Mary — that they had had an affair and he erased her memory of it, he claims, at her request — is the catalyst for the resolution of the journey between Boris and Clementine.
In comes the crescendo - as the newly reacquainted Boris and Clementine play the tape of their relative descriptions of their relative relationship and its downfall, a domino effect spurred by Mary’s abhorrence upon learning of her own memory overriding. Boris and Clementine are starting again without the knowledge they had tried before, and instead of the glorifying honeymoon phase of new relationships that we saw with Mary and Stan, they are confronted with the illustrations of themselves in both past and future, detailing the annals of mutual resentment and brokenness that accompanies falling out of love with someone. But Boris is changed, he sees the value of accepting love even if it’s temporary, even though there are no guarantees against heartbreak or devastation so piercing it can push those involved into choosing erasure of each other by sacrificing pieces of themselves. In spite of the dismal odds, Boris chooses to accept that the only thing you can do when you know it’s all going to disappear is to enjoy it while you can.
