Charlie Kaufman has a knack for projecting alternate personal realities on the screen in stories that make you wonder if this guy truly has lost touch with the real world. Synecdoche, New York provides the greatest example of this out of touch scenario, yet it in some bizarre, poetic way, he has created the truest character I have ever seen in a movie. It’s not so much because of what he does or what he goes through, but how he thinks, reacts, plans and fears. Caden Cotard is me. He is you, he is every actor, every viewer, every critic, and everyone not watching. If he had the time, Charlie Kaufman would have made it so everyone in this film didn’t have a face so you could picture yours in its place.
Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a theatre director struggling with a crappy relationship, crappy health, and basically a crappy outlook on life. He is fascinated with death and fascinated with own fear of it, overcomplicating his life and every facet of it with the concern that it’s going to end at some point and he will have wasted it, but the motivation to do something about it has fled from him out of boredom from staying on autopilot for so long. He pictures himself in the place of other characters in every situation he comes across that appears to be a mockery of his own life, as if the threads of fate have strung themselves to his body and are making him dance to a sad, pathetic tune of depression and confusion of what the fuck his purpose is on this earth. He’s basically the most emo goddamn character ever created, but we have all gone through these moments.
Being given a “genius grant” to essentially do anything he wants to, he buys a massive warehouse in New York City, builds a full-scale replica of the city he calls home and fills it with thousands of character actors whose job is simply to be themselves or people he has interacted with in his days, including casting himself, his object of desire, his wife, etc. He occasionally throws at them curve balls that reflect the mistakes and the crossroads of his life to observe the possibilities of where his life could have gone and even where it is now, watching his own existence unfold in front of him as if he were creating his own autobiography but excluding himself from it as a defense mechanism. His theatric masterpiece will be his life in its purest form, but he spends decades discovering exactly what that looks like, living and reliving every day, every decision again and again, analyzing it from every character involved, developing an understanding of how the tapestry of his fate is and was sown, trying to grasp onto its final design and make sense of it on the stage that is Warehouse 2.
Synecdoche is as captivating a movie as any other, taking you through the journey of a man who takes on the challenges that we all face, but lives and creates the opportunities to do what we all wish we could: examine the “what-ifs,” put ourselves in other’s shoes, truly, deeply, with as much understanding as if we were them, living their life, dreaming their dreams, fearing their fears, responding to us. Caden takes on the role of Clotho, Atropos, and Lachesis in a world that we forget is not reality for we are so lost in it, but oh, so comfortable. Imagine Inception if there was no manipulation, but simply diving into your memories to try and pull from it the very essence that makes it fit into the divine plan. That is Synecdoche.
The box says to watch it twice, which I understand completely and am tempted to as I feel it will be a completely different experience, filled with a deeper understanding of this masterpiece of a psycho-trip. I dare you to watch it and see yourself in it, ask yourself if you’ve ever thought that way, felt that way, feared that way, dreamed the way that Kaufman has let us explore in ways that the continuous progression of time does not allow.
If you haven’t figured it out, this is the easiest perfect 10 I have given in The BackLOG so far. It is far out there, and I understand that not everyone will take to it and take from it as I have, but I highly, highly recommend giving this a watch.
This one causes me a bit of a conundrum (more on that in a moment). A small group of friends and I went to see it during its original release (if ever there was a perfect film for the Lyric, this is it!), and when it was over we found the nearest bar, ordered a hell of a lot of alcohol, and proceeded to discuss/argue/theorize/dissect it for hours. There's SO much that can be discussed and I love it And so, the conundrum: I didn't really enjoy the movie, so why did I find it so fascinating to talk about?
ReplyDeleteI think maybe you're right; it was SO far out there (for me) that I couldn't really process it while I was watching; it took a little bit of a cool-down period (and a lot of booze) to sort things out into ideas that could be processed. I've never had any interest in seeing it again-if you do, I'd really like to hear about how the experience changes on second viewing...I just may have to give it another shot. :)