“I apply my personality in a paste.” As we sift through the memory fragments
in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, one thing sticks out:
the ever-changing hair of Clementine. “It changes a lot, the color. That's why you might not recognize me.” Clementine’s hair is
a character in itself. It’s a barometer of the state
of her relationship with Joel. And if you look closer, the shifts in its color
offer a symbolic guide to the surreal journey
inside Joel’s head -- Clem’s hair even whispers
to us some clues about the film’s greater wisdom
and life lessons. “This whole thing with the hair,
it’s all bullshit.” “I really like your hair.” “Thank you.” “I really like your hair.” “Thank you.” So let’s take a look at
what Eternal Sunshine is telling us through the secret symbolism
of Clementine’s locks. Before we go on, we want to tell you a little bit
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for free. “Hi there.” “Hi.” On the most basic level,
Clementine’s changing hair color serves a practical function
in the narrative. "Oh, man!" "I matched my sweatshirt exactly." "I like it." Because memories are shown to us
out of order in the film, the hair color helps situate us,
offering a clue to where we are in the chronology of the relationship. Sliding Doors used the same technique --
giving Gwyneth Paltrow two hairstyles to tell us immediately which is
its two alternate-universe narratives we’re in at any given moment. "Haircut suits you, by the way." But Clementine’s hair evolution is
also there to add texture and depth to the story on the figurative
and emotional levels. Most fundamentally, the hair color’s
progression signals to us the symbolic seasons of Joel’s
and Clementine’s relationship. The day Joel first spots
Clementine at the beach, her hair is green -- and fittingly, as they first meet,
we begin the springtime of their love. Green evokes nature,
growth, and flowering, and this is when their love
springs into life. “It was so intimate,
like we were already lovers.” Green is also the color of renewal. When he first meets Clementine, Joel is consumed with
melancholy and indecision over his failing relationship with Naomi. “What’s your girlfriend’s name?” “Naomi, but we’re not really...” Clementine, with her exciting presence,
seems to represent a way out of this doom and gloom, a fresh start and the promise
of new adventures. “Ah, alcohol!” The dye name, "Green Revolution" makes us think of something
earth-shattering, sudden, powerful. And this is exactly how Joel
sees Clementine when they meet -- as a bold, bright force of nature
who can revitalize his life. "Come on, man. The water's fine." “I’m just...happy.” As the couple move into the full-blown
Summer of their relationship, Clem’s hair turns red --
the undisputed color of love. This part of Joel’s memory is
defined by pure happiness. "I love you, Antoine." "Hmm, lucky me. Lay one on me." [Kissing sounds] "Don't call me Antoine." And Clem’s red hair embodies
the Honeymoon phase of a romance -- that most passionate and thrilling time when a couple experiences the joys
of truly knowing each other, before the fresh, new love is
burdened by too much history. It’s significant that Clementine’s hair
is red in the memory that makes Joel realize he doesn’t
want to erase her at all. “Can you hear me? I don’t want this anymore! I want to call it off!” She has this red hair
as the couple runs away and fights to stop their love
from getting erased. So the red underlines the deep passion
and love at the core of their relationship -- the feeling they forget later on
when trouble hits paradise, but that, when it comes down to it,
they don’t want to give up. "Then hide me somewhere...
somewhere REALLY buried." It hasn’t occurred to Joel
that after the memory-erasing procedure even the most beautiful
red-haired memory will be gone, too. His realization that he doesn’t
want to give it up reminds us that so often we place
too much value on outcomes. "It's all falling apart. I'm erasing you and I'm happy!" We imagine that if a relationship
ended in heartbreak, then the whole thing was worthless -- but even if we end
in a place of pain, the best parts of the journey
that got us there have a deep, intangible, even sacred value
that we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss. "Remember me. Try your best." We might argue red is also
the quintessential color of Clementine herself, embodying the strong personality
that Joel falls for. "Look, man, I'm telling you
right off the bat. I'm high maintenance, so I'm not gonna tiptoe
around your marriage or whatever it is
you've got going there. If you wanna be with me,
you're with me." She’s sweet and warm,
energetic and mischievous, fiercely independent. And something of this personality is
captured in this dye’s name. "Red--Red Menace." “Are we like those poor couples
you feel sorry for in restaurants? Are we the dining dead?” When Clementine dyes her hair orange,
this marks the autumn of the couple’s love. The color most associated with fall, orange can be seen as
a fading version of red -- a visualization of passion
that’s slowly dying out. Likewise, Joel and Clem have grown
distant by this point. They can barely stand each other. “It’s just...” “Repulsive.” “It’s repulsive.” Now that their exciting passion
isn’t center stage, it’s clear the two are
no match made in heaven. "Clem, do you really think
you can take care of a kid?" "What?" She’s fun-loving and novelty-seeking;
he’s introverted and suspicious -- and their differences result in
a failure to communicate. "Constantly talking isn’t
necessarily communicating." Their final argument illustrates
that they now bring out each other’s worst selves -- "And what are you like, a wino?" "A wino? Jesus, are you from
the 50s or something? A wino?" Clem’s reckless need for stimulation, “I kinda sorta wrecked your car.” meets Joel’s paranoid insecurity. “I assume you [BLEEP] someone tonight. Isn’t that how you get people to like you?” Clem stands up and storms out, her orange hair soon fading into
the dark of the apartment. Like a leaf falling from a tree,
their romance is headed towards the inevitable end. “The perfect ending to
this piece-of-shit story!” "It's called Blue Ruin." "Right." "The color. Snappy name, huh?" By the time Joel sees Clementine again,
she’s erased him from her memory, “Excuse me? Can I help you
find something sir?” and symbolically, this is mirrored in
her hair’s fourth color -- a wintry shade of blue,
aptly named "Blue Ruin." As Joel drowns in sadness, his world is
drowned in this sea of blue, and he soon undergoes the procedure
to wipe Clem from his memory, too -- "You did it to me first! I can't believe you did this to me." at which point, it would seem,
their romance is definitively over. So just as winter is the season
when living things die, “The bloom is certainly [BLEEP]ing
off the rose at this point” the cold, somber hair color represents
the death of their relationship. “You spend that much time with someone
only to find out she’s a stranger...” But winter is not only
the season of death -- it can also be the season
of hibernation, and it always gives away,
eventually, to spring. This is not the end
for Clem and Joel. And the clue, once again,
lies in the hair. A distinctly lighter patch
bursts from her roots, meeting the blue ends and creating
a whiff of green in between. The near-ombré coloring is
a potent visual metaphor that evokes the thawing winter snow, from which new green life
can sprout once more. Under this promise of renewal,
Clementine and Joel meet again, "Hi." "I'm sorry?" "I just said hi." "Hi, hello, hi." and their romance is reborn. The near-miracle of their meeting again,
even though neither remembers the other, reveals the optimistic heart of this movie. "I'm gonna marry you. I know it." "Hmm... okay?" It’s affirming that --
however hard we may try -- we can’t erase our deepest nature,
who we are, and what we love. Despite all our misguided efforts,
that inner seed inside of us will lead once again to a flower. Winter doesn’t just exist
to make us all miserable -- there’s a purpose to the blue season,
just as there is to the others. This is the time to let die
that which should die. And there are some aspects of
Clem’s and Joel’s dynamic that need to be shed. As we saw in their springtime
when they met, Joel expected Clementine to be
the energizing cure-all for his depressive tendencies. "I thought maybe you were a nut,
but you were exciting." This led him -- in their fall --
to be excessively critical and disappointed when she failed to live up to
impossible expectations. "You could've killed somebody. I don't know, maybe you did kill somebody. Should we turn on the news and see? Should I check the grill to see
if there's any children or small animals?" "It's just a [BLEEP]ing dent, Joel." For them to have a real future,
he needs to stop seeing her in this manic-pixie-dream-girl light --
as she bluntly tells him: “Too many guys think I'm a concept,
or I complete them, or I'm gonna make them alive. But I'm just a [BLEEP]ed-up girl
who's looking for my own peace of mind.” “I’m not a concept, Joel,
I’m just a [BLEEP]ed-up girl who’s looking for my own peace of mind.” Clem, too, needs to face up
to her restlessness and understand that chasing after
new, exciting things won’t satisfy her. "I'm always anxious thinking I'm not
living my life to the fullest, you know?" A quieter life with Joel may just be
the balancing force she needs. Ultimately, winter is the time for
both to let their illusions die -- their illusions about each other,
their illusions about themselves, and their illusions about
what a relationship ought to be. If there’s one thing
we know about seasons, it’s that they repeat. And the resounding message announced
by Clementine’s hair is that this couple’s seasonal pattern
will replay all over again. “I can’t see anything
that I don’t like about you.” “But you will, but you will. You will think of things. And I’ll get bored with you and feel trapped, because that’s what happens with me.” “Okay.” Crucially, Eternal Sunshine ends
with the couple accepting this inevitably repeating cycle. “Okay.” [Both laugh] As the music comes on, they disappear
into the frame of white winter slow -- this time fading not into
the oblivion of forgetting, but that of acceptance. This is perhaps the most profound
truth in the movie: that acceptance sets us free. "This is is Joel. It's gonna be gone soon." "I know." "What do we do?" "Enjoy it." We find peace not by cutting out
what hurts us, but by including our pain as an indispensable part
of our joys and ourselves. We have the sense
that for Clem and Joel, both nothing and everything
will be different. The notes will repeat,
but the music will become richer now that these two understand
their relationship on a deeper level. The condition of modern life
is forgetfulness -- we’re constantly pushed
to move on, to overcome, to repress -- "How happy is the blameless vestal's lot,
the world forgetting by the world forgot, Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind,
each prayer accepted and each wish resigned." but the braver, human choice is to remember,
to face the truth, to stay aware. Clem’s and Joel’s choice to
relive the seasons of their love, no doubt, accompanied by
a whole new array of hair colors, is an affirmation of the life cycle itself. Where there is death,
decay and disappointment, there is also birth,
discovery, and always love. "I mean, how many hair colors
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