The Hebrew word for Egypt - mitzrayim - has traditionally been associated with m'tzarim, the straits of constriction. Interestingly, the word is in the dual form; in the same way that yadayim means two hands, and einayim means two eyes, mitzrayim means two constraints. Puerility is the consequence of forgetfulness; foreknowledge that of memory. To know but still to go on - that is freedom. Total transcendence is as futile as it is infantile; as adults, we see the world through our conceptual frames. And yet, to be alive is also to be reborn every moment. The Seder is a frame that reflects the necessity of the frame, and the necessity to transcend it. We escape from Egypt, but we are still eating the bread of affliction, the bitter herbs, the execrable mortar.
Eternal Sunshine likewise dwells between the necessity and futility of its form. There is no film without the frame of the camera and the cutting of the editors, just as there is no reckoning of time without seder, without order. By dwelling on the formal structure of lived experience as well as film, Eternal Sunshine reflects on this dilemma. Like the Seder that returns to the central structural theme of our temporal imprisonment within history, Eternal Sunshine returns to the structural theme of change that means nothing without its context. The Seder exhorts us to remember that we came forth from Egypt - but phrases its command in the present tense. Eternal Sunshine exhorts us to remember that wisdom, though dependent on our previous understanding, our contexts and our frames, still grows and progresses.
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