-->This is one love story that is so unique in its content, so irreverent in its ideation and metaphors, and so transcendental in its approach, that it can be safely stated that there has never been concocted a piece on romance like this one. A surreal, phantasmagoric tale of two individuals, once deeply in love with each other, who have decided to be part of a revolutionary programme to erase each other’s presence from their respective memories to be relieved of the pain of heartbreak and separation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is an intellectually invigorating, albeit complex, movie. The brilliant, quirky Jim Carrey (cast against his type) and the marvelous, vivacious Kate Winslet, who mistakenly feel that they have wiped out the requisite memory cells from their respective brains, share hauntingly beautiful screen chemistry. Confident direction, cinematography laced with vivid realism yet a dream-like quality, and the iconoclastic Charlie Kaufman’s utterly unconventional and magnificently eccentric script have ensured that the viewers will remember this funny, weird and unsettling movie as a mesmeric human drama, rather than as just an innovative sci-fi flick or a mind boggling psycho-analytical thesis, or for that matter, an audacious experimental venture.
Director: Michel Gondry
Genre: Comedy Drama/Fantasy/Romantic Comedy/Avant-Garde/Experimental
Language: English
Country: US
6 comments:
Excellent summation, and I'm glad to see you gave it the Masterpiece designation that it most definitely earns.
It's hard;y a hard and fast rule, but I think many of the best films are from writer/directors that know their vision thoroughly and can see it through to the end. This is one of the few exceptions to that rule, instead a perfect matching of writer to director. Though we'll see how Kauffman does for himself with Synecdoche soon...
Thanks for the appreciation. This was one of those rare movies that have the ability to linger in your subconscious even a long time after viewing. I completely agree, this, in a manner similar to Being John Malkovich, is one of those perfect writer-director team ups.
I haven't watched Synedoche yet. But I've heard that it boasts of the quintessential Kauffman scripts, but, as a blogger has put it very aptly(don't remember who), it lacks the restraint and eye of a Jonze or a Gondry which would have given a method to Kauffman's madness. Nonetheless, we must indeed watch it before we form our views about it.
It boggles my mind that somebody made a movie this weirdly good.
Yeah, me too!!!
I seriously enjoyed this movie a lot. And watch it every once in a while. And the best part is that the film manages to bring out a balance from Kauffman's screenplay and Gondry's evolution as a director form doing music videos to the film. I think this is one of the sole reason why the film manages to keep things tightened yet appear very loose in its structure and flow.
Absolutely, Kauffman's eccentric script found the perfect partner-in-crime in Gondry's psychedelic vision. A brilliant work of art.
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