Summer Film Fest: Eternal Sunshine / Punch-Drunk Love
A quick programming note: The podcast for last week’s double feature, “Breathless” and “Jules & Jim” has been canceled, and upcoming episodes will be produced based on the feedback received in the discussions. The remaining weeks have been restructured slightly to encourage greater community participation. Remember, the film fest is about community wide-discussion, and everyone is encouraged and welcome to participate. We don’t bite, I promise!
The Summer Film Fest is back in its penultimate entry, wherein we discuss Paul Thomas Anderson’s incredibly overlooked Punch-Drunk Love and Michel Gondry’s modern masterpiece Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I paired these two films because they examine two different aspects of the the same theme: How we deal with love.
Punch-Drunk Love is in many ways about the incredible redemptive power of human connection (as many of Anderson’s films are, particularly Magnolia.) Adam Sandler’s stellar, subdued performance as Barry Egan went overlooked by many who expected more traditional Sandler fare, despite the film’s warm critical reception (even making several “best of the decade” lists). Egan is driven by anxiety stemming from his upbringing with seven bombastic sisters. Anderson films the world as chaotic and unpredictable, save for the calming presence of the enigmatic Lena, played by Emily Watson. Punch-Drunk Love is a beautiful take on the traditional romantic comedy. Unlike traditional romantic comedies, it isn’t about two broken people who come together and fix each other, who correct each other’s imperfections. Rather, it is about two broken people learning to be broken together, savoring the imperfections, and finding a link to their own brand of normalcy in a wildly erratic and unpredictable world.
In contrast, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is about memory, and how the pains and heartbreaks we suffer through ultimately make us who we are. The powerful, esoteric duo of director Michel Gondry and writer Charlie Kaufman craft a beautiful, resonant film that follows Joel, (Jim Carrey who, much like Sandler, turns in an unexpectedly poignant performance from a traditionally comedic performer) a reserved loner who falls Clementine (Kate Winslet), a manic pixie dream girl if there ever was one. Their relationship begins in a similar manner to most films with MPDG’s (i.e. Garden State), but carries on past that, showing the bitter dissolution of their once magical time together as their wildly divergent personalities ultimately tear each other apart. As the film begins, Joel has signed up for an experimental treatment to wipe all of his memories of the relationship from his mind. However, as the procedure is underway, Joel realizes his mistake; His memories of the relationship, while painful, are a part of him, and he sets out to save his memories from being destroyed. Although wild and dreamlike in grand Gondry/Kaufman fashion, at the core Sunshine is a glaringly honest and affecting look at love, loss and the things that make us who we are.
Both of these films are available on Netflix Watch Instantly, and on a personal note, are two of my favorite entries in the festival this year. If you liked or disliked either of these films, join in the discussion in the comments below. If we get enough feedback, then we will release a podcast episode incorporating your feedback into the discussion. And remember, you don’t have to be a film snob to discuss: Anyone and everyone is welcome to join!
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Tags: Adam Sandler, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, film festival, Jim Carrey, Michel Gondry, Paul Thomas Anderson, Punch-Drunk Love
August 30th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
The thing that ties these movies together for me, more than the theme of love and whatnot, is that both star actors most known (at the time, at least) for their comedic roles in silly, slapstick movies. I saw Eternal Sunshine in theaters and Punch Drunk Love immediately when it came out on DVD, and both surprised me not because of story or production, but because both of the leads were convincing in their roles, instead of being “Ace Ventura” and “Billy Madison” trying to play grown-up.
August 30th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Punch-Drunk Love was one of those movies that I expected to love, and that everyone I knew expected me to love. I hated it. Just didn’t like it at all. I wasn’t even sure why – I just left the theater hating it. Eternal Sunshine, on the other hand, is a movie that I saw in the theater and left with a new favorite movie. I’m not sure why my response to the two movies were so dramatically different.
August 30th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
You may want to revisit PDL. It’s exceedingly experimental in tone and style, which I think put a lot of people off who not only expected an Adam Sandler film, but even some fans of PT Anderson. Sure, the events at the end of Magnolia were very avant garde, but the film kept a grounded, real-life style that made it seem even more outrageous. With Punch-Drunk Love, however, nearly every aspect is meant to be intentionally upsetting and offputting.
Take, for example, one of my favorite scenes in the film. It’s the long, protracted scene in the warehouse where Barry’s sister brings Lena by for lunch. I’ve never seen anything in film that more accurately portrays extreme anxiety, social or otherwise. The music is an arhythmic, almost terrifying cacophony of bells, whistles, drums, blips and cranks that dominates the scene, almost drowning out the dialogue. The camera whips around and tracks with an almost sickening speed, never cutting when you want it to. Throughout the scene, Barry is barraged with a multitude of anxieties and fears–Sexual frustration (represented by the blackmailing sex line operator), emotional and social paralysis (Lena) and masculine inadequacies (One of his seven overbearing sisters)–Not to mention the incredible lens flares and blown-out images that pervade the rest of the film. Everything about the scene is perfectly designed to recreate the extreme social anxiety that Barry lives with, the anxiety that prevents him from making any meaningful human contact.
However, as the scene wears on, the music begins to die down, and he begins to take control of the anxieties. He becomes increasingly interested in Lena (Or interested by the fact that she is still interested in him) and even the forklift crash, which before would have been the culmination of the chaotic scene, doesn’t phase him. He’s more interested in the person who seems to understand and put up with his personality quirks more than anyone he’s ever known.
Another thing I found interesting is that, despite this not being a traditional “Adam Sandler comedy,” Barry Egan fits in nicely with the Billy Madisons and Happy Gilmores–He’s just a more realistic portrayal of those characters. Whereas the the social ineptness and stunted emotional development of the characters are played for laughs in most of Sandler’s films, when applied to a character like Barry Egan he becomes tragic. His outbursts are not hilarious, they’re signs of a man who doesn’t understand his emotions, who bottles his anxieties until they burst out of him with violent force with the slightest provocation. He doesn’t control them, just like Billy Madison can’t control his fits of rage. But whereas Billy and those around him treat his outbursts as normal, even Barry is often surprised by his rage.
Punch-Drunk Love is easily one of my favorite films of all time, and one of the few films that I can watch almost infinitely and never become bored by it. On the contrary: It’s a film so dense with allegory and brilliant stylistic choices that I find something new and profound every time I watch it.
August 30th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
Awesome films – I’m still trying to find PDL on DVD. I have Eternal Sunshine – sadly there is no Netflix in Australia so I don’t have it available on demand.
September 1st, 2010 at 9:10 am
I saw it fairly late in its theatrical run, and I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. It certainly sounded like something I would enjoy. I disliked it in the same was I dislike Breaking the Waves – I understood that it was technically and thematically impressive, but I just completely failed to enjoy the movie on any level.
September 6th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
Incidentally, did we skip Harold and Maude? Are we doing three entries next time, since this is the “penultimate entry”? Just wondering since the revised schedule looked like this:
* August 20 – Breathless and Jules & Jim (French New Wave Spectacular)
* August 27 – Harold & Maude and Punch-Drunk Love
* September 3 – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Triangle
* September 10 – Brick and 8 1/2
September 15th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
Alright folks, since we’ve had a few people ask, I’m gonna call it: summer’s over. Thanks for participating in the film fest this year.
September 16th, 2010 at 9:25 am
Yeah thanks for the cool list of movies to check out, I’ll definitely pick them off one by one when I have time.
September 21st, 2010 at 11:39 am
Rats we never really got to talk about Traingle!