Madison is a one-movie-kinda-town

(don’t bother with this post if you aren’t interested in Eternal Sunshine)

A number of UW Madison bloggers whose blogs I track (here, here, here and again here) saw Eternal Sunshine this week. Obviously this is a small town and everyone sees only one movie each week and it is the same movie, because, indeed, I saw it as well.

It’s easy to get yourself thinking that this is a story about real emotions, as experienced by you and me. It’s a movie that casts shadows of human traits onto the audience, so that you find yourself embracing the reluctant, shy, introvert Joel, and applauding the tenacity and spunk of the wild and zestful Clementine.

You could say, however, that Joel and Clementine are not at all different: they are both Very Needy People. Sure, the film makes Clementine out to be generous and kind, bestowing her affect on a guy who knows not how to “live.” She is the rescuer, the golden light of dawn for him.

But why do we buy into this characterization? Could it be that Clementine is quite the opposite: a brazen woman who needs attention, picking on men who are likely to be attracted to her display of charisma? And Joel, her male friend: mightn’t he be a drifter, refusing to take emotional responsibility for any of the women (what ever happened to his poor left-behind Naomi)? It’s interesting how this quiet, staid guy has a bit of anger within him. Certainly Clementine does as well. They each have a past, only at these early stages of their relationship (and we are always viewing it as it is just beginning) it remains underground. The cynics wont be leaving the theater thinking “whew, they worked out their problems, what a relief.” They’ll say –“I give them at best 4 months until they split up again since both display the emotional maturity of adolescents.”

It’s a good movie, no doubt about it – the directing and editing alone make it a stunning film: there is a scene where Joel is once again young, but really not, but really yes, young, and Clem is in the kitchen with him: the shift from little boy to grown man to Clem to Joel again is nothing short of brilliant.

As for the “message?” Oh, obvious, is it? Given that it was directed by Gondry, one could run with the idea that perhaps love is so primordial that it will resurrect itself, arising from the chemistry between people: it’s nature, not nurture, it’s a match or its not. What brought you together last year will bring you together again ten years from now, not for sentimental reasons at all, but because there is something between the two of you that causes canons to roar.