Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

Author: Michel Gondry

Are we our memories? If you go messing with those memories, are you still the same person? If you're lost to the memory of the one you love, did they ever love you? These are big questions, and a director lesser than the great Michel Gondry may well have bungled them, but in his hands, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind manages to become one of the finest film explorations of what it means to have loved, lost, and then to maybe never have loved at all. Lacuna Inc. offers memory erasure services, and Joel's ex-girlfriend, the manic pixie dreamgirl Clementine, has decided to get their relationship erased. Joel goes in for the procedure himself, but ends up regretting his choice, and then things get weird. The entire film begins to examine Joel and Clem's relationship, as well as how it fits into the rest of Joel's life. There's a wonderful set of cinematographic choices that give the entire film the feeling of a slowly fading Polaroid, but at the same time, makes Joel and Clem indelible in your memory. Why it's on the list: One of the all-time greatest art house science fiction films.