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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Disposable Affections
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“What a loss to spend that much time with someone, only to find out that she’s a stranger.”
At a critical moment in Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Clementine Kruczynski and Joel Barish decide to pursue a relationship together, even though they know it will not last. She will eventually “get bored” and “feel trapped” because that’s what always happens with her, and he will grow jealous and petty, because that’s his nature. After a few months or years of shared experience, they will wake up one morning and see in this person they know so well a complete stranger. And, the movie implies, they will—and should—separate.
And that’s “okay.”
This film, quite frankly, does a wonderful job showing the kind of challenges faced by a couple trying to delve deeper into one another’s lives--the difficulty of achieving real intimacy without simultaneously engendering claustrophobia. What it fails miserably at is offering any sense of hope for lovers committed to one another for life. The film’s formula for relationship is something like: “fall in love, have lots of fun, share your innermost secrets, hold it together as long as possible, then bow to and embrace inevitable isolation. Go into hibernation, slowly recover, and then pursue a new connection with someone else.” When Eternal Sunshine was released in theatres last year, I read somewhere that Jim Carrey strongly agreed with its general premise, having himself realized over the course of a few short-term marriages that the human condition doesn’t encourage relational longevity. Alas.
The story suggests that the romanticized body gradually, necessarily grows top-heavy from a massive accumulation of dense memories. After a certain number of years together, the tired lover just cannot walk in a straight line anymore because of a cranium distended with painful shared experiences. Toppling over and cracking the skull becomes the only way to release the edematous build-up of hurt and betrayal. One’s actual affection for and commitment to their partner will, of course, also seep through the wound, but that’s inevitable—even desired. What we need every few years is a thorough cleansing, a scouring of the skull which eliminates everything we don’t want to deal with, reducing all of the mind’s mental furniture to removable ash.
What I'm describing should not be confused with the picture’s primary, fantastic premise, the idea of surgically erasing unwanted memories to make life bearable. No, what I’m tackling is the unstated, logical corollary to the film’s more obvious message. Apparently, the closest kind of human bond can’t help but become bitter and unpalatable, like a piece of gum chewed too long. The film says nothing about forgiveness, compromise, or effort. In the world of Charlie Kaufman’s latest script, you play hard until you’re worn out, then move on to another game. Whatever happened to hard work and sacrifice? Or maybe these concepts only ever mean anything in the realms of business, academia, and artistic creation . . .
Wouldn’t it be radical to consider our most intimate relationships as worth the same degree of commitment we give to our professions and dreams? How would it transform our communities if we considered marriage as an ever-evolving masterpiece which demanded eternal vigilance; constant adaptation; and daily revelation of the most precious, private parts of our innermost being?
It wouldn’t just change our marriages. It would probably change everything.
21 April 2005
Posted by Paul Marchbanks at May 9, 2005 12:00 AM
Comments
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind explored the idea of two people searching for the perfect relationship. The two people, in trying to build depth in their lives, focused entirely on the problems between the two of them. They ignored the things that made them fall in love in the first place. The movie explains an interesting point about how humans push the limits of life in search of perfection, but it ignored the things in life that the two characters had, all of the positives. An engineer can focus on the flaws of an air duct, but two people in relationship would end up going crazy with such trite details.
There may never be an answer to the 'true love' conundrum. People sit on both sides of the debate about whether or not there are soul mates. This movie widely accepts the notion that man will only be truly happy in solitude and rejects the idea that two people can ever find solace in a lifelong relationship. If it were true that two people can never be 'perfect' for each other, wouldn't it be safe to assume that there must be someone out there who is the best available? Enter Professor Marchbanks's idea that a relationship requires effort, just as a life goal or a career. We already assume that two people cannot be 'completely happy' with one another. However, if they focus on the things in their relationship that do make them happy, and place less importance on gripes, then aren't we getting pretty close? True, finding the right person requires time and failed relationships. But the movie seems to reject the idea that this will ever happen.
Pushing the limits of creativity, and searching for perfection, works for things that man can control. The only thing that man hasn't yet learned is to control another person. An architect can manifest a structure that he envisions within his mind right down to the smallest detail. The same cannot be said about the man who has the preconceived idea of what he thinks the perfect relationship should be. Too often, people are willing to change themselves for another person. This only temporarily masks the larger problems. Eventually, people revert to their natural personalities. So why not stop trying to force it? A relationship requires work, but only to the extent which one can control. The real work is figuring out what makes you the most happy, and learning to accommodate the baggage.
Posted by: David Schoch at April 29, 2007 3:38 AM