Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (Film Critique)
The film Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind is a narrative film that examines the captivating and emotional challenges of realities of relationships about the past love and loss of memories. The film takes place in the first scene, where the protagonist Joel Barish, played by Jim Carrey woke up. The use of the blue cool tone filter and slow music is present,  as we first see the emotions of Joel being sad, lonely, and pathetic person  as he prepares himself to go to work, but his car is wrecked and needed to be fixed, so he took the train to work. As he waits, he has a sudden realization that cause him to skip work and plans to go to the beach at Montauk, where he meets his love interest Clementine Kruczynski, played by Kate Winslet. At this moment, this is the first time they saw each other,  and now, we see that the cool tone filter is gone, and the use of a  neutral tone filter is present in the background,  as it highlights the characters when they saw and talked to each other on the train, we now realize that Joel found his happiness. We also observed that the characters' clothing choices in the train scene reflects their personalities. As Joel wears an all-black outfit because he is a timid, depressed, and introverted person whereas Clementine wears a bright outfit because she is an extroverted, risk-taker, and carefree person, although wearing a bright-colored outfit can also means that Clementine is his sunshine. Nonetheless, despite having quite different personalities, they seem to be drawn to one another. As Clementine gives her number, despite having to get up early for work,  he breaks away again from his obligations, and called Clementine back. They stayed up all night and it was one of the best nights that Joel had, as it highlights them lying on the ground at Charles River which their romance began to ignite.
As the film continues, the two lovers occasionally fight resulting to end their 2 year relationship and caused them to have a bitter break up. After the breakup, Clementine impulsively decides to erase all of her memories with Joel. As Joel learns that Clementine has removed him from her memory, he as well decided to do the same for him to erase all of the memories about her. In the later scenes it shows the narrative of the procedure and the unconscious Joel. Unfortunately, Joel has to revisit these painful memories of their relationship to track it down in order to erase her fully. The process is a reversal factor that shifts from their most recent argument to the past times they spent together earlier in the relationship. During the flashbacks, cool tones was present and often used since scenes must have a depressing ambiance because it was at the time where their relationship has began crumbling. While doing the procedure, halfway through the process as it slowly erasing the bad memories of them. Reliving those moments and arguments as the usage of spotlights was often used which draws attention to the context clues in the movie such as the arguments. In those memories we also see the changes of Clementine’s hair shows where we are in time at each particular scenario, and also depicts the status of their relationship. When her hair is green, it represents the beginning of their relationship, where we also saw a significant transformation in Joel's life. When her hair is red, it represents the good days of their relationship. When her hair is bright orange, it indicates that their relationship is crumbling. And when Clementine's hair is blue she is suffering with her mental health, as well when she erased Joel from her memory.Â
Through reminiscing his memories, Joel was able to focus on his uncertainties and flaws after having to replay  those events. Their relationship collapsed due to his fear of intimacy and his vulnerabilities, characterized by his  lack of confidence and communication. But while recollecting the memory of Clementine and him lying next to one other on the Charles River. At this time, Joel fully understands that his only genuine happiness has ever been was  with Clementine or by not erasing Clementine in his memories meaning by replaying those memories, Joel was able matures and grows through their experiences. Joel realizes that he wants to keep his memories of Clementine and regrets doing the procedure at all. He decided in his unconscious self in his mind to escape and tried to preserve all the memories with her. Throughout the escape in his mind, Clementine provides the solution for them to escape which reflects his consciousness to hold on until they said goodbye, and Clementine said to meet her at the Beach in Montauk. As the procedure was done there are no more traces of Clementine in his mind but Joel felt the feeling that he must go to Montauk again at the beach, like in first scene he ditched his work to go to the beach where she meets again Clementine where they fall in love all over again. Also, the Lacuna Company who does the procedure that removes the bad memories of the person. Those personnel who worked for Lacuna are emphasized to be more than just minor characters as  it is well connected to the plot's storylines that further highlights the damage done by the memory-altering technique. As one of the personnel named Mary played by Kirsten Dunst was also a victim of the procedure. The married Dr. Howard Mierzwiak, portrayed by Tom Wilkinson, who is the company's head, had an affair with Mary. When his wife learned of the connection, she consented to having the memory of the relationship removed. As Mary discovers her romance with Mierzwiak, she takes the company's records and distributes them to each of its clients. As a result, Joel and Clementine get to listen to their first tape recordings at Lacuna and understand that even if life isn't perfect, their love may still be valuable.Â
Throughout the film, I think the movie was a masterpiece despite the twisted plot. The way the elements of the film used were authentic. It employs a formalistic approach of scenery, costuming, and lighting manipulation to show the interactions and ideas of the characters in which they conveyed it appropriately for each scene. I see the usage of semiotic analysis because the amount of metaphors and symbolism in certain objects can represent the themes in the film. The use of colors are present and visually represents the emotion of characters depending to mood and ambiance. The lighting was present to highlight important details such as when we are inside of Joel’s mind when they escape. The way the scenes transitioned especially in the library scene as Joel knew something was off and everything in the background started to be blurry and dark as to portray his emotions at that moment. Also, some of the angle shot of the scene are on eye level or shot reverse shot. Overall I think the way they show the message of the movie was presented good, but quite confusing, which was the idea to make it more interesting.