Directed by Michael Gondry and featuring another original and very inventive screenplay by the genius that is Charlie Kaufman, Eternal Sunshine starts off by showing us two characters who meet at a train. One of them is the blue-haired Clementine Kruzcynski, a young feisty woman, the other, Joel Barish, a slightly neurotic thirtysomething. Marvelously played by both Jim Carrey, who can be seen in one of his what can be called more 'serious' roles, and Kate Winslet, with a spot-on American accent, the two characters seem attracted to one another, not at all aware of the history they already share together. With fast paced cutting, a perfect use of colour, beautiful unsteady documentary-like camera shots and a superb story with some great twists at the end that make your mouth water and leave you hungry for more, Eternal Sunshine is a celebration of love and the many secrets of the mind. Director Michel Gondry, who takes on the difficult task to bring the story to the big screen, manages to tell the complex story of the two lovers very clearly, keeping it also very entertaining and visually captivating. Like the other adapted screenplays written by Kaufman, Eternal Sunshine too is a complete and very detailed depiction of the imagined world in which the story takes place. Everything seems to be there. Nothing is missing. From crazy hair colours to flashbacks of a young Joel hiding from the rain and strange looking machines that wipe out all of your memory, Eternal Sunshine is a brilliant take on the beauty of our mind and the what if's questions of forgettifg d wanting to forget. Erasing everything you've been through seems so easy, but once you made that decsision there's no way back, or is there? Joel Barish takes on the challenge in a film that makes you think twice about the decisisons you make in life, even the smalles ones or the ones that seem smost easy to make. Eternal Sunshine questions the mind and gives you a wonderful take on what would happen if you just woke up one day deciding to forget everything you've lived through for the last couple of years. It's smart, funny, beautiful cinema that exceeds everything you've seen before.What is it about?
Joel Barish wakes up to start his day and go to work like he always does. Then at the train station a young woman catches his attention. This young woman is Clementine, a spunky all positive type of girl that likes to chat away. Sitting in the same train, Clementine who has taken notice of Joel's gaze resting upon her, decides to start a conversation. Not knowing each other they feel attrackted and in them both they have sparked an interest. He ends up in her house and a love starts to bloom. Everything seems okay, and there seems to be nothing strange about this love encounter. However, the two of them turn out to have have met before.
Or actually, not just met, but spend a whole section of their life together, once they were deeply in love. This scene with which the movie opens turns out to be a flashforward. Both of them have no memory of each other which is caused by Clemetine who decided to erase Joel from her memory and once he found out what she had done, Joel decided to do exactly the same. But as he's going to the process of forgetting Clementine he changes his mind and realizes he don't want to have her erased but hold on to their memories the good ones and the bad. Attached to this big machine that has to wipe out all of Clementine from his mind, Joel has to find a way to save Clementine from dissapearing or he won't ever get hold of their memories again.Final Verdict: *****
Kaufman again has written a great screenplay to an immensily entertaining and original love story. Eternal Sunshine is about the beauty of memory and the importance to cherish our memories whether good or bad. It makes you realize what a beautiful thing our mind is and how great it is we are able to remember. Brilliant, therefore, is the opening sequence where the two main protagonists meet. Joel doesn't seem to know the famous Hucklebery Hound song which features the name Clementine and when asked for his opinion he doesn't seem to know any other adjectives than 'nice'. It's only until the end that it becomes clear that he does actually know the song and knows lots of interesting words to describe the beauty that is Clemetine, but because of erasing his memories he too erased his knowledge of the songs and the wonderful ways to describe this girl who once was his girlfriend. Great locations that are fully used, beautiful and interesting shots that go hand in hand with the perfect fit of Jon Brion's music, Eternal Sunshine itself feels to be made out of flashes of the mind. It's pace is just right,
never becoming too complicated to grasp the beauty of the plot. Featuring a stellar cast, Michel Gondry succeeds to create this world in which almost everything seems to be possible. It's this great mix of fantasy and science-fiction about these two characters who once were madly in love but ended up hating each other. Raising questions about whether you are ever able to erase your soulmate and what you would do if you decided you want to remember instead of forget, it prickles its audience's curiosity until the very end. With wonderful twists that are filled with a certain kind of sadness, Eternal Sunshine is a beautiful mix of images and emotions in which you will find more great things every time you'll watch it and new meaning you didn't find before. It are only the really exceptional films that are able to make its viewers discover new things in a piece of work they've already encountered before.
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