Joel is in the process of getting his relationship with Clementine erased, when he realizes he wants out- he wants to instead keep those memories. The Joel and Clementine in his head are somehow aware of what's going on, and come up with a plan to try and escape the memory trackers. So they start hiding in different and irrelevant memories. It's upsetting because as you're reliving their relationship through Joel's recollections, you see all the good times they had and why he wants to call the procedure off.
This is where the film gets pretty confusing, but also pretty postmodern. The viewer is constantly jumping from scene to scene and switching from dreams to reality. The sometimes confusing eclecticism and story within a story factors of the film make it postmodern. The story is fast-paced and completely original. It follows Joel and Clementine as they're being chased through his memories as they get deleted one-by-one, then randomly switches back to the panicked memory workers as they try to find where the two went. It questions what is real or not, especially when the viewer can't tell what's actually occurring vs what's only happening in Joel's head. Bits of reality get placed within dreams, making everything seem very surreal and not quite right.
One way postmodernism is described is as a decline of metanarratives, something that is common and universal to all. Postmodern works reject that idea, which is shown in the movie simply from how radical the plot is. It's not cohesive with what contemporary science can support. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind is a well-done movie that is a great example of postmodern creations.
I started this movie and, from what I saw, it is a very postmodern film. It is confusing in the way that it is partially relatable (the classic love story) yet it introduces a completely new idea that makes you rethink the message of the film.
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