Dating : ETERNAL SUNSHINE

ETERNAL SUNSHINE

OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

director; Michael Gondry

2004

The film focuses on Joel and his melancholy sense of heartbreak. Clementine is wild, and her own. Incredibly impulsive and lost.

She’s searching for a way to find herself in this big fucked up world. But in the process deteriorated Joel’s mind and heart. She erases him without a second thought.

You can tell she’s got a traumatic background, comes from maybe a fucked up home-life or some old boyfriends. Or maybe, she’s searching for the meaning of life like the rest of us. Trying to find a way to settle her needs.

She’s loud and colorful, while Joel is in his head and quiet.

Joel’s an artist, a journalist, a dreamer. But he dreams quietly and keeps to his notes. Which causes Clementine to feel trapped and lost. She doesn’t understand his feelings, because he doesn’t communicate.

A very bipolar relationship. The highs are high, but when the meet their lows it’s almost too bad to recover from.

It’s only once he’s in the process of losing her does he truly understand how much she influences his life and his memories.

It’s said that they spent five years together. And in that time, they’ve have a large abundance of spontaneous; along with domestic; memories together.

He’s jealous, and almost selfish with her. And because the way her mind works and how she sees the world- she takes it to be controlling. instead of caring and empathetic.

While their relationship is detangling in his mind, the movie cuts back to the process.

Stan and Patrick have together erased clementines mind so that she has no memory of joel. She’s already working on getting her life together, and found a job.

But Patrick fell in love with her during the procedure. Because she’s beautiful, and the personality that is in her home.

Patrick, despite his lack of shame, sorts through Joel’s belongings and quotes his feelings back to clementine and uses his memories to begin a relationship with her.

Meanwhile Stan is having a love affair with Mary, the receptionist for the mind-erasing office.

Mary (not yet knowing) had her mind erased as well. Because she had an affair with the main doctor of the operation. But because he has a husband and children, they knew it couldn’t happen again.

But for some chance of love, she kisses him during the operation. And he tells her that the same mistake can’t happen again. Mary is distraught and shaken up.

She loses all her respect for the doctor, and his establishment. And decides she needs to share the memories back with all of their patients.

This movie shows the lows, and most of joel’s thoughts while in his memories. He even speaks to clementine in his mind. Trying to piece together his feelings for her- and he’s trying to stop the procedure from inside his head.

He falls in love with her, or rather remembers that she was something he’ll never have again.

During the ‘goodbye’ scene inside of his head, clementine whispers to meet him in Montauk. Before the scene pans black and the waves finally wash away his last memory with her. The beginning.

He realizes his mistakes, and when he wakes up he has a crucial moment where he is impulsive like her. He takes a different train, to skip work and meet her. Even though at the moment he doesn’t realize.

Finally, the opening scene makes sense where he meets Clementine on the train. And they’re caught staring at each other multiple times. She reintroduces herself and their relationship begins again. From the beginning.

Patrick unknowing that she found him, still loves her and doesn’t understand.

Mary mailed the tapes back to the patients, and clementine listens to hers in the car with joel present.

Here it can be heard that she fell out of love with Joel, and all the bad thoughts and feelings she had about him at the end of their relationship.

You can tell the scene causes confusion for both of them. And Joel is heartbroken once again.

But after a short period away, she visits him because she knows there is something there. Joel let’s her back in, and let’s her listen to his own tape about her.

It scared Clementine away, and leads to the final scene in the hallway.

Where they finish the heavy conversation of is it worth it to start over again if they’re only going to get bored of each other once more.

They decide it’s worth the risk to chance her feeling trapped and bored, and Joel feeling crazy and not being able to think.

Because their love is much like a spiritual connection, they start their relationship once again.