The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Rating: 10/10 (22 March 2004)

Michel Gondry's ingenious new movie is named after a line from the Alexander Pope poem Eloisa to Abelard. Abelard is a prominent 12th century philosopher who falls in love with Eloisa and is castrated by her relatives who find out they are in a relationship. After the tragic incident Eloisa retreats to a convent, Abelard to a monastery. The Pope poem is a letter from Eloisa to Abelard written during this time they were apart. Another reference was made to the same poem in the movie Being John Malkovich also written by the Charlie Kaufman. As puppeteer Craig Schwartz was staging a scene from Eloisa to Abelard he got badly beaten up by a parent who thought parts of it are "dirty".
In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Joel (Jim Carrey), decides to get the memories of his girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) erased only to find out during the procedure that this is not exactly what he wants, that he is still in love with her. Realizing this, he tries to hold on to them, try to resist the procedure. We watch him struggle to keep the memory of Clementine alive in the same way Eloisa tries to hold on to memories of Abelard.

The complexity of the plot requires our attention. However, once we give this attention everything fits in perfectly. It is very coherent and logically consistent. I highly recommend this movie to all movie lovers.