Today I finally saw the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind then. And it was brilliant. Sad and bittersweet and beautiful. And all about humanity… the ability to love, and the willingness to even get hurt over it. I think that’s what’s most admirable in human nature. That even if we knew it would all end in tears, we would be willing to embrace it just so we can enjoy the ride.
Oh, I saw this film called Equilibrium on TV the other night and that was all about human emotions being illegal, as apparently without feelings like anger and hate there wouldn’t be any wars or violence. In the end it was quite clear there wouldn’t be any sort of life worth living either. Emily Watson said something like ‘Without love, without anger, without sorrow, breath is just a clock… ticking’, which I thought was quite fitting… and gripping. Anyways, watch that one if you want to see some Matrix like moves.
Back to the Eternal Sunshine. One of the things that made my jaw drop was Jim Carrey being absolutely fantastic. I’ve never been able to watch the so called funny Jim Carrey films with all the rubber faces, without cringing. But here… he was just so real, so human, so fragile, so brilliant. His performance was just heartbreakingly good. I so hope he gets more ‘serious’ roles in the future. And how funny was it to see Elijah Wood in a creepy sort of role. 😀 Very amusing indeed.
Charlie Kaufman’s screenplay was fantastically quirky and touching. Even though I really enjoyed Being John Malkovich and absolutely loved Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine was just so complete and perfect. I can’t wait to see what he writes next.
Visually most interesting as well, I suppose traveling in someone’s mind always gives that freedom of illustrating the thoughts and experiences as vividly as possible. There was definitely a lot of eye candy scattered along the way.
The emotional journey of the movie (or the relationship portrayed) sort of traveled from back to front, from the end to the beginning… moving from the nasty, bitter behaviour and resentment of the end of a relationship to the pure and beautiful feelings and experiences of the beginning. It was a vital reminder to anyone, not to forget why you love someone, and how you arrived where you are now. I came out with such a sense of hope. And joy. Joy over everything I’ve experienced and felt in my life. It is all so important. And joy over holding on to love even when things get rough. As in the end, that is all that matters.
Clementine : This is it, Joel. It’s going to be gone soon.
Joel : I know.
Clementine : What do we do?
Joel : Enjoy it.