Hit me with your best shot: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I've been a long time reader and admirer of Nathanial's The Film Experience so I thought I would jump in on his Hit Me With Your Best Shot series, especially for one of my favourite films from the 00s. Nathaniel talks about how this exercise allows you to appreciate the film so much more, and he's right. So let's get on with it.

I saw this film for the first time at a cinema with my family. My sister had to duck out after 30 minutes because the imagery was so strong and the camera so kinetic that she was getting dizzy (she was feeling ill prior). Unfortunately for her, she not only missed out of one of the best movies of the 00s, but she was unable to enjoy the amazing wonder and energy of the set pieces on display.

And here's the dilemma. With a film where the majority of the sequences are so kinetic, so full of ingenious design and detail, that each shot is not only beautiful but bleeds into the other, how could I find the single best shot? I had this in mind as I rewatched the film, and within the first act I thought I found my answer.

This image stuck with me for its simple beauty, capturing that moment when you first really make contact with someone new, someone exciting. For Joel, this bright free spirit is bending over backwards to say hello, and the possibilities are endless. And for me, like other viewers who had already seen the film, there's the magic of these two characters subconsciously making the connection again, against the science of Lacuna Inc. They were meeting because each had somehow both said 'meet me in Montauk' in their dreams, or that's what I like to think. It's a shot full of optimism.

The movie progressed as I remembered, expertly set up sequences full of both imagination and emotion, building towards those beautiful final images of Joel and Clem on the beach. But just before that, at the emotional crescendo of their reconciliation scene in Joel's apartment, this sequence leapt out at me.

It is mundane in comparison to the dream/memory sequences. The drabness of the corridor and the tungsten of the lights express the characters' fallen and defeated state. And yet, out of all the misery of re-remembering their failed relationship and, the naked disclosure of their flaws, and stripped of cinematic whizbangery and scientific interference, hope springs anew. They decide to try again.

And in this moment, there is a perfect call back to that image at the station, but this time, it is Joel who is making the move.

It's a carthartic moment in the film, and while the earlier image evokes excitement and wonder of an entirely new meeting from a distance, this evokes truth and honesty when they are finally on the same page. One shows the beginning of a relationship, going in blind, and the other the beginning of a rekindled relationship with eyes wide open. While the image and sequence is relatively simple, it spoke volumes to me.

Joel (lit with a halo) is saying: Okay. After all that we've fought about, and all that we've fought for, I will accept that our relationship was screwed up before. I will accept my flaws and I will accept your flaws. But I will move myself to be closer to you, to see you clearer, to make you smile again. I too can bend for you.