UNFORGETTABLE: Jen and I finally saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and, like, wow. A more conceptually and structurally audacious movie than pretty much anything Hollywood ever puts out, ever, and it works -- brilliantly, poignantly, movingly.
But it also highlights, to me, a major absence in American film criticism. Almost all the pieces we see are written prospectively: "I think this is why you should (not) see this movie, but I'm not going to spoil any major twists or plot details, but I can mention what the themes of the movie are without ruining your moviegoing experience."
That's all well and good, and it has its purpose, but there's too little space granted to the other kind of criticism: retrospective: "Okay, now that you've seen this movie, let's talk about how the whole think works (or doesn't). Everything is fair game."
In that kind of analysis, you can talk about how various narrative decisions work, and whether they improve the movie. You can talk about the ending without upsetting anyone. You can get into deep analysis of theme -- not just which themes the movie addresses, but how they're resolved, and whether it's satisfactory.
Case in point: in Eternal Sunshine, there's a series of events that's set in motion in the third act by a supporting actress that were unexpected, yet thoroughly logical and added greatly to the depth and emotional complexity of the movie. I don't want to talk about it here on the face of the post, because I don't want to spoil it either, but if you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about. Can we use the Comments feature and work our way through this movie?
More later. This website is going through such changes that, by Monday, you may not even remember what was here before.
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