Synecdoche, New York (2008)

[CMJ]

Saw this last night.

I love Kaufman....one of the true unique voices in film these days.

This isn't by any stretch a great film....I don't think. But it's perhaps the most ambitious film I've seen in quite some time. It's a hodgepodge of ideas, riveting, and kinda brilliant. It's also incredibly self indulget, boring at times, and a helluva mess.

It asks questions about the human experience, death, living life, art, and probably 10000 other subjects.

I went between rolling my eyes at Kaufman to being delighted at his genius.


Anyone else seen this film? I'm not completely sure WHAT I think about it, but this is a film that begs to be discussed.

[J'ktal Anajii]

I saw it, was bored out of my mind, and thought it to be a pretentious piece of crap.

While it might ask questions and point things out, it did none of them well, and quite frankly, I wanted everyone to die. In a fire. After falling on porcupines. At least THEN maybe we'd see some real emotion (aiie! Help me I'm dying!) rahter than being too damn introverted and mumbly.

On a plus note, it's good to see that the lighting director from the X-Files still has work. Glad he keeps making that one lightbulb work for him... Gah.

I do not reccomend this film by any means.

[CMJ]

:lol

I am not saying the film is for everyone. Even for people who enjoy being challenged by movies, this could prove too big a test for a variety of reasons.

Hell, among my family I was the only one who enjoyed it at all. And I'm not even sure I "liked" it in a conventional sense. But few films lately have made me wanna talk about them like this.

Kaufman gives several clues in the early going where he's gonna ultimately go with the film, and yet I must admit to being frustrated as it winded down. However, I think that was part of his point(not saying he was trying to tick off his audience like a Haneke does tho) -- at the end of life our "momentum" kinda grinds to a halt and we sorta just wait to die as our faculties slowly leave us. We're left with nothing to do but contemplate why we're here, to miss those that have already left us, and if ponder if we did anything worthwhile as we lived.

[J'ktal Anajii]

When the movie was basically about a man who doesn't understand his own life, and is constantly trying to figure it out to the point that the movie becomes his therapy, it's meaningless to anyone other than that character.

We all wonder if we're doing something worthwhile with our lives. This is not a subject worth wasting so much time and effort on telling us. I had no compassion for anyone in the film, unlike my real life. It was a far-removed, over-artsy portrayal of, quite frankly, a loser who was unwilling to really move on and make something of himself. Instead he withdrew into the comfort of only the things he already knew, and in doing so, became even less interesting to anyone else, thus cementing his own self-doubt.

[CMJ]

At the beginning he was directing Death of a Salesman but with younger people playing the leads. He was always focused on death, even at early middle age with his fear of ailments(most of his health issues oddly vanished as he started "rehearsals" for his opus).

Hell, even his last name of Cotard is a delusion that you believe you are already dead.

I'm not sure he's a "loser" - he did get that grant which seems to give him unlimted funds. He just doesn't understand what life has to offer because he's so focused on death("We're all in denial hurtling towards it" or something to that effect). He actually had a pretty good setup at various times in the film, but doesn't take the time to realize it.

He thinks to be special he has to do something larger than life - perhaps competing against his 1st wife whose art was so miniature. The woman he seems to ache for doesn't have as much going for her when we meet her. She works at the boxoffice window and probably doesn't make much money. However, she goes for it. She buys a house(that's on fire :lol ), gets married, has kids, and generally lives life. He's so focused on trying to find truth or whatever, that he doesn't know how to live it(even early on, characters "direct" him long before he actually is directed) & basically lets life pass him by.

The film didn't work for you, that's fine. I don't think his journey is meaningless tho. The film is partly nihilistic and partly carpe diem. I find it fascinating.

[J'ktal Anajii]

The fact that he never realizes what he has made him a loser, to me. Even if he had gotten what he ultimately wanted, it would have made no difference. He lived a life with blinders on, and because he was so focused on his own little search, he never sees his own potential, or see whatr he's already done.

In such a sense, his journey is meaningless, as he was never able to see that he already had what he wanted from the start. Such a character cannot grow, and cannot understand themselves. Without that understanding, the journey they take could last a million years and he could affect billions of people, but even still, there would be no triumph for him.

That is why I hated this film, and the characters in it (hence the fire and porcupines). Nihlism is all well and good, but for crying out loud, don't mumble it!

[CMJ]

But you know there are people kinda like that. :lol

I have to admit I wrestle with my "meaningless journey" an awful lot. Kaufman seems to have similar issues since this isn't the first time he's kind of approached these sort of questions. He is definitely focused on how our minds work and try to make sense of life(in Being John Malkovich they actually ENTER into someone elses mind and in a sense figure themselves out that way).

I don't think he's damning Cotard. I think he sees much of himself in Cotard and is trying to figure out of he can just "live the moment" without focusing on the spector of death. Especially since as we age, time seems to fly by faster. Does anyone really appreciate life? Even if you live a worthwhile life, you usually feel you didn't do enough. He becomes the woman maid in the "play" and his life in that role is hardly different than his life as a male director of a stage production.



It's definitely surreal throughout, and I'm wondering if this was all some sort of "vision" about his life he was watching after he died.

[J'ktal Anajii]

It's definitely surreal throughout, and I'm wondering if this was all some sort of "vision" about his life he was watching after he died.

Even if that were the case, the movie Stay did that in a much better, far more interesting way.

Yes, we all wrestle with that problem of direction and self-worth, but watching others wrestle with it is very low on most people's prioty list. Kudos to Kaufman for making a film about it, but boo for making it so incredibly uninteresting.

There's ways of dealing with self-doubt, lack of direction, and even insecurity which could have been far more powerful. I didn't even pity the main character of the movie because he seemed too far gone on his own little pity party. Honestly, I think he needed a wedgie, a slap in the face and someone to tell him he actually needs to do something with his life instead of thinking about doing something with his life.

I didn't feel this was a good, powerful or important film in really any respect. I was bored and dissatisfied with a character I was supposed to be able to find some common ground with. Perhaps my own, normal life is far too exciting for me to relate to him in such a way. Who knows.

[CMJ]

Well he was trying to do something with his life. But in trying to find truth, he was attempting to create truth. Kind of the opposite of what Kaufman himself was doing with this film(with it going way into the surreal and all). So Cotard was probably a much better director than a playright. Sometimes it's easier to expose truth with fiction. Even documentaries often have to shift timelines and such to try to tell the story.


Perhaps my own life is boring and depressing enough to relate to the film. :lol