This March, the Rooftop Cinema Club in downtown LA is hosting a viewing for the 20th anniversary of one of my favorite films— Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind— and I couldn’t be more thrilled! As a twisted romantic comedy, this isn’t the type of movie that you forget about by the time the credits fade to black. Instead, the story etches itself into your memory and evokes some sort of deeper meaning that follows you with time. Cinema is an art, and I would compare Michel Gondry’s film to what people call “visual poetry.”
Poetry takes form primarily in writing, but it’s also expressed through films. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, elements of poetry are conveyed in layers of symbolism, color, cinematography, and writing. The film follows the story of Clementine and Joel, who through science erase each other from their memories after a messy breakup. What makes this movie really confusing, especially when viewing for the first time, is the non chronological timeline; there are snippets of Clementine and Joel’s memories of the two meeting each other, going on dates, fighting, and moving on to meeting new people. However, the storyline is not in order. This creative directorial choice in the sequence of the film makes it incredibly abstract— it leaves it up to the viewer to interpret Clementine and Joel’s relationship and what might’ve gone wrong at some point. Not only that, but it creates elements of surprise as the more you watch, the more the story pieces together that the beginning scene where the two characters meet each other at a bus stop is not the first time they interact instead, it’s the version of their future selves that don’t even recognize each other anymore. Memory plays a central theme in the story of this movie, telling us that we need not forget our past in order to make the same mistakes over and over.
Similarly, the use of color is fundamental to the movie. For example, the various colors of Clementine’s hair and how they symbolize a different stage in her relationship with Joel mimic seasons changing, and time passing. When Joel and Clementine are introduced for the first time, her hair is a bright green, which represents the birth and the premise of something new. As their relationship develops, Clementine’s hair is dyed a bright red, hinting to love and passion as it later fades into a burnt orange in the late stages of their relationship and the two fight and visibly lose that spark that they had in the beginning. Lastly, Clementine’s hair becomes a wash of blue during the winter once it’s all over and she visits a clinic to remove Joel completely from her mind— the hue becomes a sign of lost connection.
Not only do the two become isolated from each other, but they face struggles of self-identity in the process of removing themselves from each other’s memories. Evidently, the title of the movie presents its own irony, implying that a spotless mind does the opposite of bringing happiness. Oftentimes, things go wrong in our lives. We wish we could take things back, but as this film suggests, growth and contentment is formed through the trials of past mistakes; you can’t erase time or people unless you never want to grow. A beautiful representation of memory is shot in the scene of Clementine and Joel running and laughing through a beach with snow falling and waves crashing. There is really no telling when it takes place, but it does point to lots of movement, telling us that precious moments exist, even amongst all the bad and all the ways in which life is anything but spotless— but keeps on moving regardless.