Seventh Post - McGuirk

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Directed By: Michel Gondry

This film is about a relationship that going down the tubes. Joel (Jim Carrey) hears from friends that his girlfriend, Clementine (Kate Winslet), had her memory erased of their relationship. Furious that she did this to him, Joel decides to have the same procedure done. He visits Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) who is the only doctor to perform this revolutionary procedure. The memories erased start from the most recent and work back to the beginning. As it gets further into the process, Joel realizes that he doesn't want to erase Clementine from his memory and he tries to stop it, but ultimately fails. But when the two meet again randomly, not knowing they acutally know the other, the question of the film becomes will they be able to start over.

When I read this section on avant-garde film, this film came to my mind first. It's definitly a movie you have to watch multiple times to be able the understand and catch all the details. What makes it avant-garde is the way it destorts editing, narrative structure, and even clever uses of lighting.

The editing is what makes the film work. The cuts are very random and fast in most parts when several of Joel's memories are being erased consecutively. We go from one action to the next without traditional uses of dissolves, wipes, etc. Sometimes two memories are combined into one. Objects that were in a scene, disappear with clever cutting of the same scene without the object to make it appear that object, or sometimes Clementine, as been erased.

The narrative structure is not your typical beginning, middle, and end, in the sense of consecutive events. The film begins at the end, but we don't know that until the end of the film. It then goes to when Joel is at the beginning of the procedure. The beginning of the procedure takes us through Joel's and Clementine's relationship backwards, since the most recent memories are being erased first. This structure is confusing at first watch, but the more times the film is viewed, the audience can get a sense of how the film is structured and why it's structured this way. (End to middle to beginning to end again). This creates a sense of confusion in the audience, and we feel Joel's confusion and frustration.

The lighting in this film is very interesting. Specifically, I noticed that darkness was a way to communicate something being erased from Joel's memory. An example of this is a memory where Joel and Clementine are in bed and they're talking about when she was little and thought she was ugly. She starts to disapear and Joel follows a spot light under the sheets to try and stay in the light in order to hold on to the memory. In a montage of several memories happening and being erased. Joel is leading Clementine out of the darkness and viewing some of their memories that are light with a spotlight that quickly turns to darkness.

These three elements are examples of how this film is a great example of avant-garde film.