The three DVDs that just completed their visit to NewMexiKen from Netflix were Before Sunset, Maria Full of Grace and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I watched the latter for the second time today and it too rates five ristras on the NewMexiKen scale (five being best).
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as introduced by Roger Ebert —
It’s one thing to wash that man right outta your hair, and another to erase him from your mind. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” imagines a scientific procedure that can obliterate whole fields of memory — so that, for example, Clementine can forget that she ever met Joel, let alone fell in love with him. “Is there any danger of brain damage?” the inventor of the process is asked. “Well,” he allows, in his most kindly voice, “technically speaking, the procedure is brain damage.”
The movie is a labyrinth created by the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, whose “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation” were neorealism compared to this.
Jim Carrey and Kate Winslett are superb as the confused and confusing couple Joel and Clementine.
Interesting and good as the film was first time through, it is much better the second time when one knows what’s happening well enough to focus on the story, characters and dialogue. If you saw it once and liked it, see it again. If you haven’t seen it, see it twice.
This was a fantastic film (guess I like the genre). I’ve only seen it once, but it is intriguing to think about how much of Kate Winslet’s character is “real” or just in Joel’s head…