It’s given less attention than her previous color changes, adding to its emotional significance. She does a poor job, with certain chunks colored brightly and others completely missed. And just like that, Joel is gone.įollowing the procedure, she dyes her hair blue.
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She mentions wanting a baby, and Joel, as with most subjects, is keen to say they’ll “talk about it later.” Things spiral out of control fast for the pair, eventually resulting in Clementine making the spontaneous decision to have him erased from her mind. Clementine berates Joel for never sharing anything with her, and he scowls back that she never stops talking. Soon, the two don’t have anything to talk about. We start to see their relationship dissolve in reverse, filling in the blanks between the polarities of painful disgust and euphoric delight we’ve witnessed thus far. They really have to start living with one another when things are orange, and all those little personal quirks they were happy to ignore in the heat of their new romance become harder to deny. The era of red passion has passed, and the fervor has died down. It’s during the orange phase that the problems between the two start to emerge. Though Clementine’s hair is never styled in any traditional sense, it’s still possible to gauge the attention she put into taming it. As their story marches forward (or, backward in the case of the film), the redness of her hair fades to an orange-then, to a muddy orange, grown out again, with increased messiness. Naturally, they didn’t yet know the scope of what would befall them they existed only in the heat of something new and alive. Joel and Clementine fell for each other hard, and their infatuation was instant and powerful. It is also symbolic of warning and danger. Red is the color of fire and blood, associated with energy, strength, passion, and desire. It’s the birth of all that is to come-and of course, one of the final colors we see in the backwards-facing trajectory of the film.īefore their first date, Clementine changes her hair color to a bright, fiery red. It’s the blossoming of something fresh and alive something pure and organic and derivative of human nature. The only time we see Clementine with this hair color is at this moment, the day her and Joel first meet. It is associated with harmony, freshness, and ambition, the presence of her roots only emphasizing the budding life of their connection. Green is the color of life, of renewal, of nature. The hair is long and grown out with significant roots showing, revealing the blonde underneath, and she pairs it with a bright orange sweatshirt.
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When Clementine and Joel first met, her hair is an acidic shade of green. It becomes a philosophical piece of cinematic art, and the best means of keeping track of where we are in Joel and Clementine’s relationship chronology comes down to one key element: Clementine’s hair. Joel’s memories and conscious thoughts begin to blend, re-fabricating events from the relationship. The chronology begins simply enough, but as the erasing process digs deeper and brings Joel’s older memories closer to the forefront, timelines shift and weave in varying directions.
![watch eternal sunshine of the spotless mind watch eternal sunshine of the spotless mind](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/35/e5/81/35e58175fe30019c00aadee4dae01c3e--eternal-sunshine-kate-winslet.jpg)
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We see how their instant chemistry ended in mutual disappointment, the personality traits that clashed, and eventually, the love they maintained for one another despite it all. The core of the film is then spent watching the downward spiral of their relationship as it retreats in time. Joel learns that Clementine hired a company that erases memories to delete him from her brain, and in an act of retaliation, he signs up for the same treatment. She’s become part of him through the undefinable forces of human emotion, and it’s all before the opening credits start.įrom that point, the film instantly jumps forward only to start moving backward. He leaves her only to end up offering her a ride home, and exits her house only to pick up the phone the minute he steps through his own door. While Joel makes every attempt to shutter himself from the growing magnetism of his new acquaintance, he simultaneously can’t seem to shake her. Joel’s voice-over narration questions why he has to fall in love with everyone who shows him the faintest bit of attention, as Clementine’s bubbling personality makes it obvious she’s rarely less than its center. The two instantly attract, as tends to be the case with opposites. The story begins simple enough, with awkward and socially-repressed Joel (Jim Carrey) meeting extroverted and spunky Clementine (Kate Winslet) through the innocent cliché of a long walk on the beach. It’s hard to conceive putting a film like this together. A screenplay like Charlie Kaufman’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) is a masterpiece of construction.