The dangerous set that Michel Gondry insisted on building for ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’: “I called them pussies”
There is nothing more simultaneously comforting and disturbing than watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind after a breakup. You feel seen through Michel Gondry’s jarring depiction of fading love and Charlie Kaufman‘s honest depiction of how relationships can sometimes bring out the very worst in us.
It is confrontational and painfully relatable, making us reflect on our repressed memories and the relationships we, too, would rather forget while also causing a bittersweet sensation as we look back on fond moments which we wish could replace the bad ones.
Somehow, through the combined genius of Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey, audiences are able to project their own experiences onto the characters, creating a film that can either be cathartic or traumatic, depending on how you process it.
However, this feeling is largely due to Gondry’s precise and uncompromising direction, opting for completely naturalistic lighting and sets that add to the lived-in quality of the story world. It feels like a real relationship with very real struggles, something encapsulated by the harsh and unblinking reality of their world and the dramatic dissolution that ensues with their breakup. One that is perhaps best portrayed through one scene that Gondry was strongly advised against filming due to how dangerous it was to execute.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind goes all-guns-blazing in its commitment to surrealism and dream-like sequences, with Kaufman’s affinity for nightmarish narratives blending perfectly with a breakup story by elevating the darkness associated with heartbreak. Gondry masterfully portrays the idea of a character who is both clinging to his memories while trying to escape them, with sometimes terrifying sequences as he finds himself in disjointed moments that fall apart in front of his very eyes, faces blurring into empty blobs and buildings crumbling apart.
But there is one scene that best captures this, with Gondry showing Joel and Clementine’s first encounter on the beach as they break into a nearby beach house. In order to show that the memory was fading from Joel’s mind while undergoing the process of memory erasure, the director wanted the house itself to start being flooded with seawater. He did so by building a house on the edge of the beach that would fill with water as the tide came in.
It sounds like a mad idea, and one that the producers weren’t happy about after hearing about, terrified that it would be far too dangerous and a massive health and safety risk. But Gondry simply didn’t care, saying, “We hired a special team to put the set like two feet in the water. They had gear and stuff, and then at the last minute, they refused because they said it was too dangerous.”
Of course, he was understandably upset, which he made known, adding, “So we were screwed, we had to do it ourselves—the actors, the producer, everybody—so I called them pussies I think. Then I got told off by the chief of the union, who came to sort of try to humiliate me in front of my crew because we fired those guys.”
Thankfully, the effect was achieved, creating a haunting sequence as Clementine barely acknowledges what happens while Joel frantically tries to escape his own mind and the memory that is about to fade forever. It might be a risk, but sometimes these risks are what make a movie truly great, and one that Gondry is surely glad he took.
