Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27695530@N03/3328773083/

Self Questions:

What forces shape our sense of self?
-The forces that shape our sense of self are our relationships that we form with individuals, are feelings and emotions, our behaviors and experiences. The most obvious force in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind however was the relationships that are formed and how much they actually influence the shaping of the "self." It was evident that both Joel and Clementine's self was shaped by each other so drastically that they had parts of their memories erased so their "self" would go back to how it was prior to knowing each other.

Compare a sense of the self as being an ordered, rational being with ideas of the self as fluid, changing, unfixed, unmoored.
-Without going into a lot of detail, the easiest way to look at comparing these two different kinds of "self" is to look at the difference between Joel (Jim Carey's Character) and Clementine (Kate Winslet's Character). Joel was a predictable, orderly, and easy going character, while Clementine was unpredictable, irrational, and changed quite frequently. This may be due to different personality characteristics or the fact that she never wanted to be bored.

Film Critique questions:

How does the film begin?
-The film beings on 2/14/04, Joel wakes up and gets out of bed, goes outside to his car to find that it was been damaged. He goes to work and decides to get on a different train and skip work that day. He took the train and went to the beach, although it happened to be snowing that day, and he is not sure what brought him to the beach. However, at this beach he sees a girl there who happens to be Clementine (they had not met yet at this point). He goes to a cafe where Clementine also is, but he is too hesitant and shy to introduce himself to her, while he is at the cafe he draws a picture of her from afar. However, on the train ride back Clementine introduces herself to Joel on the train for the first time.

Describe the most critical scene. What made this scene so important? What overarching message/principle does the scene convey? What were the cinematic techniques that made it work well?
-I think that the most important scene is the first scene which is described above. It was so important because it turns out that he meets Clementine in this scene, after all Joel had his memories of Clementine erased from his brain the night before, and Clementine had her memories of Joel erased prior to this as well. I thought that the overarching message in this scene was that it was fate that the two of them met, and even if they had their memories erased they were meant to be together after all that they had been through.