Chapter 7: Cinema as Brain – Mind and Body

ETERNAL SUNSHINE: Attempting to avoid memory erasure in ‘real’ space.

A man wants to forget a woman so dear to him that he cannot bear to lose her. In classical cinema, such a state of mind, bordering on insanity, would have necessitated a string of encounters and events leading to a change of mind in both the man and the woman, so that they can now, both purged of former troubles, be happy ever after. Today, however, these methods no longer seem to work, and instead, the man decides to erase all memories of the woman (after learning that she had done the same to him) by means of a new technological process. During the actual procedure when all traces of his girlfriend are wiped from his mind, beginning in the ‘present’ of the story and going back in time, the man rediscovers how much she means to him despite the mental anguish and suffering her capricious ways have caused him, so he tries to ‘hide’ her in his childhood memories. But the plan fails, and all recollection is apparently gone. The next day, as if following a whim, he takes the train to the place where he had first met his great love and there he meets her (‘once more,’ as it turns out), so that their story begins all over again. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (US 2002, Michel Gondry) is emblematic for this chapter because it typifies the contemporary interest in identity, memory, trauma, and twisted or looped temporal structures. The circular, Möbius-strip-like structure of the film calls into question the linear logic of classical cinema, according to which a problem can be recognised and solved, an obstacle can be tackled and overcome. The situation is quite different in Eternal Sunshine: a never-ending spiral is set in motion, and we as spectators are no longer certain of our role in the game a film like this is into, tricked as we, like the characters, are into mistaking ‘replay’ as play – are we impartial witnesses, active participants, or manipulated pawns? Eternal Sunshine and similar films revolve around questions that we have already pursued in previous chapters: Does a film take place inside or outside the spectator’s mind? Is it objective or subjective? Who – or what – is telling a story, and what perspective are we sharing? Is visual perception disembodied (i.e. purely visual) or embodied (i.e. does it require a body and consciousness)?