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As I mentioned before, last Friday Kristen and I snuck out of our respective caves and headed to the local movie theater. Needless to say the theater parking lot was jam packed with many eager bodies keen to see the latest installment in the Kill Bill series. We being of a different persuasion had selected Charlie Kaufman’s latest installment - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. She’d been wanting to see it for some time since hearing rave reviews from her sister G out in Colorado. She valiantly put it off to appease my desire to see Touching the Void a week or two prior, at which we were treated to a trailer of Spotless that featured a scantily clad Kirsten Dunst bouncing around on a bed. All bouncy-wouncy. Mmmmm.

Well, following that display I was all gung-ho about seeing the movie as well. In the coming days I would read up on it and find out that it was from the same hands that molded Adaptation and Being John Malkovich, which only served to reinforce my inclinations. I’m an admirer of both of these films, and wouldn’t mind popping a squat in front of a friend’s big screen for encore performances. That said, there is something intrinsic to these works that comes out once again in Spotless.

G and Kristen both found the movie “sad.” I agreed, but the sadness I felt managed to consume itself, disappearing underneath the protective petals of some other sort of feeling. It was akin to moments in Lost in Translation, where the beauty of having any emotion is magnified in the emptiness that emanates from the screen. Or perhaps the screen is simply sucking me dry in these instances - reaching inside to pull out what I was certain was singular to me. Slate’s David Edelstein puts it succintly when he says:

Ah yes. The absurdist galaxy. Of course when I look at the word “absurd” I immediately think of Camus. Confronted by one’s own mortality, having no notion of the end’s meaning — all that jazz. So Edelstein’s comment - about emotional truth - actually annihilates itself in my interpretation. Emotional truth? What can that possibly mean? Just ponder that question for a bit and enjoy the existential moment.

That’s what you need to do with Sunshine as well. Perhaps, at least in my secondary interpretation, Edelstein simply means that the raw emotional power of the movie breaks the boundaries of its form - especially during the first sitting.

At the very start of the movie I was a little worried that the hand-held camera work was gonna be an extremely disturbing aspect of the film. I had to let myself go - cozy back into the theater seat and release all criticism from my mind. I was out. I was going to enjoy a movie. I didn’t have to wait long before the hand-held seemed to phase out and I was in the midst of a tightly woven tale. Letting myself go - as the scenes began following one another - I actually found myself relating to Jim Carrey’s character. That was probably the biggest surprise of the night - as normally I can’t stand Carrey (except when he starred next to Matthew Broderick in the extremely underrated dark comedy Cable Guy). I suggest you turn to a great review by Ryan Ellis, who writes:

He goes on to mention how Kaufman must be a hopeless romantic. Unfortunately, so am I. Thankfully that is what allowed me to love the raw emotional truths that shot forth from the silver screen.

I told Moms I would write this because she said she didn’t understand the movie - but I don’t think I want to give away how the film works within its frame. I think that the ultimate beauty of it is that it escapes the frame - or at least it does so in your heart - and not your mind.

I won’t pretend to have written a solid “review” here. I’d call it more of an impact analysis. It’s been a week since I saw the movie, so some of that impact may have slid off the teflon — but if you’ve read this far, you already know of two reviews that take the cake. I can only urge you to see it for yourself - with an open heart - ready for the piercing.