Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The most significant dream element that I see in this film is the fact that time becomes fluid. It does in fact become fluid throughout the whole film. Past, present, and future all become mixed up and happen at the same time. When the film begins, we see what we believe, and the characters believe to be their first encounter. “Have we met before?” Clementine asks, and Joel says that they haven’t. Clementine keeps feeling like they have, and Joel brings up that he has seen her at her place of work, Barnes and Noble. Looking back, this is significant because we later realize that this is not the first time that they’ve met, and they actually knew each other quite well. We find out not long after this scene that Clementine has taken means to erase Joel entirely from her memory. To spite Clementine, Joel decides to do the same. Throughout the rest of the film, time becomes very fluid. Past memories, and things that are currently happening in the room are seen from Joel in a dreamlike state. He is asleep, and getting his memories erased. Throughout the dreaming, he is aware of Clementine, and he decides that he does not want to get his memories of her erased. In order to try to keep her in his memories, he goes back and forth while dreaming from the present to different times in his past. Some of the memories stem all the way back to his childhood, the most embarrassing memories that he long tried to forget. The dreams keep being interrupted by the irresponsible people that are supposedly watching him while he is asleep. They become part of the dreams, especially Patrick. The memories are being lost, and their faces are vanishing. The timing of the dreams are all messed up. He finally does remember throughout the dreaming process where Clementine and he actually did meet for the first time, at the beach house. No matter how hard they tried, the memories are erased. When he wakes from his dream, he doesn’t remember Clementine, who at the time was dating Patrick. She kept having a strange feeling about him, she knew that something was not right. We see the scene from the beginning again, which is now clearly the present. They meet when Clementine has blue hair. They watch their videos and they realize what has happened. They have no choice but to sort of start over. In Battle Royal the most significant dream element is significant objects. The first significant object is actually a woman. This is because of the exaggerated idea of black slaves wanting white women in the time period this story took place. “A sea of faces, some hostile, some amused, ringed around us, and in the center, facing us, stood a magnificent blonde—stark naked. There was dead silence.” The next significant object was the prize from the fights that they were having. The boy who was the main character wanted to go for the gold pieces, and he would make sure that he got them. He had created a plan to get them, and later we find out that it is only brass pocket tokens. The final significant object after this boy gives a speech is the fact that he is awarded a scholarship to go to college as he is just graduating high school. He is awarded this by the men for being a standup guy, which basically means that he says what they want him to. He does not let the haunting memory of his grandfather take this away from him. At the end of the story it says in parenthesis “It was a dream I was to remember and dream again for many years after. But at the time I had no insight into its meaning. First I had to attend college.” I have had a dream before where I woke up and I was confused as to what reality was, and what part of the dream was. My perceptions of reality were distorted or shifted because of the fact that the dream was so realistic. I’ve also had a dream where I woke up and had déjà vu of the events happening in the dream actually happening in reality.