Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine is a key inspiration with our experimental film. The ideas behind the film - written by Charlie Kaufman, Pierre Bismuth and Gondry himself - in which the protagonist, Joel, decides that he wishes to remember the women he loves, while he is currently having all memories of her erased, like to our narrative of loss and memory and dreams. The film demonstrates this is a great way, muddling up memories in order to keep Clementine hidden from those trying to erase her. I love how film makers play around with focus and lighting as a way of illustrating the gradual loss of information from Joel's memory.

What I also think is great about the film is its structure; on first viewing, it is particularly confusing until the reveal at the end. I love that it starts at the end of the narrative. I think this enables the audience to connect with Joel in a way they may not have been able to do otherwise; we see him at the start of the film, feeling sorry for himself on Valentine's day, lonely and miserable, until he meets Clementine who quite literally brings colour to his life. The fact that we then move straight to the end of their relationship means that we as an audience still have the same feelings for Joel that we had at the start of the film. We are not allowed to  witness the ups and downs of the relationship and take sides. By then following him through his mind and memories we are closer to him than ever and are completely in the film and believe in it. It makes us, like Joel, wish for the memories of Clementine to remain.

In addition, I really like the use of sound in this film. I like that while Joel is going through and reliving some of him memories, echoey voices from the real world of those erasing him memories, filters through in a dream like way. I also like the distortion of some of the voices when certain memories are being erased. This is all mixed with simple piano chords and electronic tracks. This is something similar to what I think we will try an create for our film.