Review of Synecdoche, New York (2008) by Peter T — 24 Jun 2013

Unless you're a Charlie Kaufman fan, I'm reasonably sure I'll be in the minority here; people will say they watched 2 hours of WTF. For me, it was an experiment in existential ponderance via meta-film. If that last part has no meaning for you, then you'll definitely not enjoy this film.

Simply, Hoffman is once again a monster force of acting and his supporting cast (of hundreds) intersect and support wonderfully. The visual surrealness of a city built on stage is just that surreal, but all if that is dwarfed by the script and editing. The words are so important; almost down to saying each and every one. They disguise their important in within nuance and passing chatter, but therein lies all the questions Kaufman is posing. His writing is brilliant; it's the cinematic display where they become dreamy and float away like sleepy memories. It's a tough film to watch. It's existential and it's going to ask why which makes an audience squirm because maybe you're answers to that question, why, are not pleasant, and like the lead is asked in a Freudian slip, "why did you kill yourself?" To which Hoffman responds indirectly, "because I need to understand before all my time runs out." [paraphrased].

Kaufman explores life and death in ways in which I thought his character was in Purgatory and was re-exploring a life of pain, mistakes, and regret and once it's over I think he would tell me, "that's an interesting way to think about the questions [he] posed.".

But our visions may be completely different. This film may also be the exploration of a mentally ill man overwhelmed by disorders all across the board; there's definitely allusions and props everywhere pointing towards mental illness. Time has no meaning for him and identity quite possibly is a fraud. So obviously, things are open for interpretation (which is excellent for exposition but confusing for narration).

This film is a proposition of the unknown in life, its individual's choices & consequences and the fact that time is merciless in those choices and one may never have the opportunity to remedy failures it even be bestowed the gift of understanding how mistake X led to a life of Y; life's unforgiving in itself and that lack of understanding creates all sorts of copings, irrationalities, and just further mistakes until the cube that is you is so misshapen, one then believes they're a sphere.

In some ways I don't know how to explain what I viewed... I just know it was brilliant. It's brilliance is as if Stephen Hawking personally explained to me his book, A Brief History of Time. There'd be moments of clarity that would astound my feeble mind, but overall I would never understand the way he understands, and visualizes, and conceptualizes the universe. This is Kaufman's achievement in the film. He knows where he was going and what he wanted to query the audience. I cannot understand all of it. I can only decrypt, digest, and formulate what I thought I understood. And I think Kaufman would be satisfied with that. Maybe the question merely being grasped is more important than the answer being certified.

It was sad and philosophical and it the right mindset, those are ingredients towards the path if genius therefore I give this film a bonus half point. I wouldn't call it entertainment and that's why the majority won't enjoy it but like Hoffman's character, I don't care about them. I care about myself and where my cog fits into the Machine. If you're looking for those kind of questions, I highly recommend.