Some people make movies that take place in exotic cities. Some make movies set in war zones, or wide-open spaces, or distant futures or pasts.
The movies of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman take place almost exclusively within a single setting, and it's the most exotic location of them all: the human mind.
You can tell a Kaufman movie from a mile away. The writer hasn't actually directed any of his own scripts, but each project is indelibly stamped with Kaufman's signature just as surely as if he'd been the one calling all the shots. Being John Malkovich and Adaptation were directed by Spike Jonze, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind by George Clooney, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kaufman's latest project, was directed by Michel Gondry. In each case, you could have a field day debating whether it's the director or the writer who's the real auteur of the film.
There aren't many screenwriters today who can claim that sort of authority. Kaufman's status is a special one, although it invites comparisons to the likes of Marguerite Duras, whose script for Alain Resnais' legendary Hiroshima Mon Amour announces its authorial presence in every frame.
The comparison with Duras and Hiroshima Mon Amour runs even deeper. Like Hiroshima, Kaufman's new movie is a love story that's also an elaborate meditation on how our memories define who we are. And like Duras, Kaufman simultaneously constructs and deconstructs his own narrative through an almost maddeningly complex structure that inevitably mirrors the workings of the human mind itself.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a wistful tale about the end of a love affair, although it's also a wicked black comedy/sci-fi yarn about beginnings, endings and middles. It all merges in the movie's slipstream, eventually becoming a snake forever devouring its own tail.
The movie opens on the beginning of the romance and, despite the wintry backdrop and hushed tones, the scenario feels warmer and more natural than what we're used to from Kaufman. What we get, at least at first, is an eccentrically stylized but fairly straightforward account of two people meeting and falling in love: boring, introverted Joel (Jim Carrey) and impulsive, outgoing Clementine (Kate Winslett).
Roughly 20 minutes in, out of nowhere, the movie does a complete 180-degree turn, abruptly transforming the mood from romantic promise to emotional devastation. The movie takes a little too much delight in piling confusion upon confusion, but it's eventually understood that Clem has ended the relationship and, through some strange (but, in accordance with the movie's own wacko logic, totally mundane) procedure, had Joel wiped from her memory. Distraught and barely functional, Joel opts for a revenge purge and has his memory erased as well.
It's here that the bulk of Eternal Sunshine unfolds, within Joel's brain during the erasing process, as his memories play out before his eyes and ours, mutating into ever more wildly exaggerated forms before finally folding in on themselves, then withering and disappearing. Complications set in when Joel's subconscious mind realizes that he doesn't really want to let Clementine go, prompting our comatose hero to shuffle Clem's memory to safer, more deeply hidden nooks and crannies of his brain.
It's a strange trip, to be sure, sort of like what Fantastic Voyage might have been if some acid-gobbling metaphysicians had been at the helm. (No, wait, that already happened and they called it The Matrix.) Director Michel Gondry, a former music video wiz-kid, pulls out all the stops depicting what goes on inside Joel's brain, assaulting the viewer with a relentless barrage of audacious effects, ultra-rapid edits and all other manner of edgy, convoluted flourishes. If you gave a particularly precocious student filmmaker a hundred million bucks or so to make an experimental feature, it might look something like this.
Not all of it works, of course, but there are moments of considerable beauty and insight, not to mention a couple of awfully funny bits. In all, it's another feather in Kaufman's thinking cap, and a rewarding experience for the open-minded. Ace Ventura fans, on the other hand, are warned to stay far, far away.
The Ybor Festival of the Moving Image, Part Deux: More Cremaster, More Films, More Non-Films
The Ybor Festival of the Moving Image has one more weekend to go, so don't let your guard down just yet.
YFMI's boundary-pushing blend of film and artful insanity runs through March 21 at venues including Madstone, Tampa Theatre, Centro Ybor and various sites on the Ybor campus of Hillsborough Community College. The festival's final days are also packed with plenty of workshops, lectures and discussion groups where audience members are encouraged to meet the filmmaker-artists and pick their brains.
Probably this weekend's hottest ticket is the presentation of the final segments of Matthew Barney's dazzling Cremaster cycle, shown in all its 35mm glory. Cremaster 3 screens on March 18 at 9:30 p.m., with parts 4 and 5 showing on March 21 at 4 p.m., all at Madstone.
The spectacular Cremaster 3 is the longest and most ambitious entry in the cycle, while Cremaster 4 offers plenty to gawk at with its satyrs, fairies and Isle of Man setting. But, for my money, the most satisfying segment of all might just be Cremaster 5.
Of the three parts Barney plays in Cremaster 5, each endures epic, ritualistic trials, culminating in transformation or death, the final transformation. Barney hangs upside down, climbs across ceilings, binds himself with manacles that look like reproductive organs, leaps over bridges, and interacts with creatures who look a lot like large, blotchy, albino sea monkeys with exaggerated genitalia. All of this is structured as an opera, complete with beautiful, brooding music, and is observed by a tragic figure in black played by — hold onto your hats, now — former Bond girl Ursula Andress.
As you've probably guessed by now, there's nothing particularly straightforward about this undeniably abstract film, and yet the elegant and arresting images appear to tell a story. The greatest pleasure yielded by Barney's film lies in letting its remarkable images wash over us without feeling the necessity of deciphering and connecting them. Like the other films in Barney's cycle, Cremaster 5 is not so much a code to be cracked, but a luxurious mystery to be relished.
Other highlights from the festival's final weekend — and there are many — include Agnes Varda's amazing The Gleaners and I (6 p.m. March 20, and 2 p.m. March 21, Ybor Room) and Pat Olesko's Clothes, Calls and Cunning Secrets (9 p.m. March 20, HCC Performing Arts Theater). Lots of interesting local work is also on tap for this weekend, including Victoria Jorgensen's Red Flag Women and a selection of shorts by artist Jeff Whipple (7 p.m. March 19, HCC Performing Arts Center).
Festivalgoers can expect a feast for the senses and a good party to boot when Movies That Move hosts an evening of cinematic surprises at Viva La Frida on March 20 beginning at 10 p.m. And don't forget those repeat showings of festival faves Afro Punk (7:30 p.m. March 20, Ybor Room), Rivers and Tides (2 p.m. March 21), and Ferdie Pacheco: Fight Doctor (2 p.m. March 20, Ybor Room).
Tickets can be purchased at the individual venues for each screening or event. For a complete schedule and ticket information call 813-253-7674 or visit www.yborfilmfestival.com.
Contact Film Critic Lance Goldenberg at 813-248-8888, ext. 157, or [email protected].
