I’ll get onto it: the Oscar-winning script? Angelic. The visuals? Alluring… Everything else? disgusting.
So thank you Charlie Kaufman for your electric words and Ellen Kuras for your female-gaze-esque cinematography… but no thank you, Michael Gondry for your male gaze. It’s sad because Kuras captured emotion and intimacy, even if the male-gaze was so evident with Gondry’s direction. Kaufman’s writing disguised his misogyny – he did write these characters into being.
So my antipathy lies here. Firstly, Clementine (Kate Winslet) isn’t seen individually and always in relation to Joel (Jim Carrey). Yes, it’s his narrative but explain to me why she is mostly viewed as a sexual object or her ability to amuse Joel in ways only specific to his sexuality or his liking. Secondly, the women here are always half naked and its necessity is unrelated to the scene; it’s not where the female is in control of her own sexuality, but where their sexuality is adjacent to the man, which absolutely irks me. Thirdly, Kirsten Dunst‘s character illustrates a very ditzy woman, engulfed by feelings towards her boss as if that’s the only reason why she works. She depicts a girl next door, not the relatable kind but one that appeases the male audience with her klutzy demure. Fourthly, there’s a lot of female crotch showing, as if sex is our only power.
So it’s just a classic ‘soft-boy-meets-ditzy-manic-pixie-girl’ but glossed with skillful cinematic technicality… but yet again it’s made in 2004, so I guess we can forgive the misogyny? Ha!
4.5/10: fuck the disguised male-gaze
