Their personalities and tricks may quickly tire some viewers, and often times one even questions their presence in the film. This seemingly unfocused team will also have its share of problems in the story. Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood and Kirsten Dunst are also a part of the movie, and they work for Lacuna, the company responsible for memory erasing. Although the story constantly redefines itself, reinvents its plot and changes the course the viewer was sure to be fairly linear, it quickly reminds us the mind is no simple matter, and that it would be a waste to treat it so. While the idea may seem confusing to some, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (“Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation”) is no stranger to this way of working, and “Eternal Sunshine” not only worked well, but became even more relevant and remarkable for doing so. Quite often, it feels one is watching the materialization of dreams and mind tricks, and the viewer is invited to try and understand these processes. The contrast between Joel and Clementine is very visible – but so is their complementarity – and Winslet and Carrey could not have portrayed them any better.ĭealing with very human and psychological issues, Gondry did not choose the obvious nor orthodox ways of telling this story. Quickly, the memories of the moments they shared together start fading from Joel’s mind, while a now desperate man realizes he still loves Clementine, and these are not stories he wishes to lose. Joel believes this is too painful of an information to have, and decides his sole alternative is to do the same. His girlfriend Clementine (the always fantastic Kate Winslet) left him and underwent a procedure to erase him from her memory. Joel Barish (in a very much appreciated change of tone and role by Jim Carrey) is a heartbroken man. In “ Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind“, French director Michel Gondry tests this premise and how its implementation could affect ourselves and our relationships. But what if we had the possibility to completely erase certain moments – or persons – and, therefore, the impact they had in our lives, quite deliberately? The mechanisms to do so are not fully known, nor are they proven to always work. Perhaps because we know so little about how our own minds work, humans also have a strong tendency to rewrite, alter and suppress memories, all for a variety of reasons.
In simpler terms, memory can be defined as our ability to store, retain and eventually recall past experiences and information, hopefully learning from them and using that knowledge to adapt ourselves to new circumstances. What does it constitute, really? Truth is the human memory, in all of its immensity, is still vastly unknown to us. In the great “Another Woman”, reviewed here, Woody Allen has Gena Rowland’s character wonder if “a memory is something you have or something you’ve lost”.