ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004) *** This is a very original film with a lot to say and says it well. I wouldn't argue with anyone who insists that it is a great film, and I would agree with any suggestion that it makes a series of important scientific statements covering a dizzying array of subjects including that ever guarded area of ethics. There's nothing wrong with it, everything is done well. If Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet aren't the most appealingly romantic couple in the history of the world it's because they're not supposed to be; they're a couple whose flaws are not to be overcome, but successfully create a blight. The performances though, are beyond criticism. Locked in an intelligent awkwardness giving way to an eclipse rather than absence of confidence, surveying the world from an artificial sense of helplessness behind healthy sideburns, Carrey could almost be Neil Young in another dimension. He's kind of a dork, but having examined the potentialities in some detail he's either decided that's ok or retreated in the face of phantoms. It's not necessary to know that. Kate is more immediately sympathetic, but frustrating because we've all known several versions of that girl without being able to help her, or maybe willing to help her due to the time constraints of temporality (there's always something better to do). Which brings us, repeatedly and in the open and not perfectly concentric circles of a pond, to the science of memory. Michel Gondry makes it all look easy to film, as if projecting Jung's sensations relating to the collective unconscious were as easy as making a coyote fall off a cliff. Psychology enthusiasts are going to have a great time with this one, reigniting issues about the collective unconscious that assumed so fierce a nature as to separate Jung and Freud… There's an awful lot there, between that and the subconscious and dream analysis (the brilliant film technique is so secondary)…is Jung right, that livid dreams are unnatural and counterproductive interference with the natural function of the psychological subterranean? Or did he totally miss the point that he in the greatest part identified? Feel free to start there or anywhere else, if you like doing stuff like that this is a film that will stay with you for as long as it takes to work it out. Which we understand to mean forever. If I were more Apollonian and less Dionysian it would no doubt be one of my very favorite films. It moves me as things are, but none of the characters are enough like me for me to really get into it and emotionally invest. That leaves me standing on the sidelines, never closer than looking in. Funny how the same set of circumstances will lead to an absolute engagement to the point of emersion on the part of someone who steps aside once blind emotion tries to take over. You should watch this film.
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