Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind is one of my favourite movies for so many reasons, such as the structure visuals and the complicated story told.
At beginning of the movie the circumstances of the setting are sort of confusing and its the sort of movie you have to just keep watching so you can understand.But purposefully confusing the audience could be a tactic from the writers to replicate the feelings of the characters in the film after controlled memory loss. It is also important that the character Joel criticises his spontaneity, however later in the film it is identified as clementines defining characteristic. revealing their opposing nature. this is vital throughout the film as there dynamic changes and progresses as less hostile compared to the beginning.
The cinematography is something really important to the films overall experience, since it categorises different times throughout Joel and clementines relationship ,because the story isn’t linear it can be difficult to follow. The visuals can almost be reminiscent of memories as they are quite hazy and can also be vivid. This is also similar to clementines hair -something that may be irrelevant to other movies- however in eternal sunshine this could imply her spontaneous nature as it changes colour whenever she pleases, and she almost rambles nervously about it when her and Joel first meet personifying it may be a defining characteristic.
The general storyline wants to tell us how necessary our past memories can be, no matter how painful, in order to keep us from making to same mistakes continuously. Due to Joel and clementines dynamic at the beginning it is clear that this isn’t the first time they have met, and the tone at the end when they reconcile could almost be romantic yet the audience knows they are doomed in the end, since they avoid the lessons they learn from their pain.it is also interesting how the actions of Joel and clementine is compared to children. especially Joel ,as throughout his childhood he spent time hiding and running away from certain interactions, which is a behaviour that is amplified in his adulthood when he makes the irreversible decision to remove his memory of clementine, an act of running away from his pain.
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