Highly original look at how life is perceived, through a subjective examination that is re-imagined as a theatrical play.

CRITIQUE

Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York is not a movie, it's an experience.

Some audiences (the kind who think foreign films are unapproachable, pretentious twaddle) might claim that it's “uh, experimental.” To say so does the both the word and the film a major disservice because there is nothing indeliberate about Kaufman's technique; he is not testing a principle here. He has mastered it. 

Synecdoche could very well be the first cinematic masterpiece of the 21st century. Like most masterpieces it will be reviled, misunderstood and ignored until future generations. In this case, it's easy to understand why.

Synecdoche is — barring the most conventional definition — nearly impossible to describe, which sounds more preposterous than profound. So be it. The best one can do is try and hope for the best. So... imagine Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past as translated through the eyes of a Louis Bunuel. (Be advised that a familiarity with the latter references puts you hundreds of paces ahead of the typical moviegoing audience, but any smart viewer will be able to appreciate Synecdoche's genius.)

All at once Kaufman/Synecdoche examines the nature of dreams, memory, emotion and art — by using the nature of art (and artifice) itself as the construct. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Caden Cotard, a regional theater director of minor success. Self-doubt (with a hypochrondriacal chaser) seems to be his poison du jour. He's mired in a stifling marriage — the wife herself being a semi-famous artist who paints nudes in miniature. (As in so tiny they need to be viewed with a loupe.) One day she packs up with the Nanny and daughter, leaving for a Berlin gallery opening and him in a lurch.

Cotard is sexually attracted to both his goofy box office clerk and most recent leading lady, who are played by different actresses because... stay with me here... the story is not only about Cotard's “real” internal life but also his external re-imagining of same; as seen through a play-within-a-play (all made possible by a hefty McArthur genius grant). In other words Cotard stages the remainder of his own life by casting actors to be all his friends and lovers.

This autobiographical “play” takes over 40 years to create — because it is being constructed as a daily re-examination of his experiences. So in the process of casting the play he has actors playing himself (and associates*) who then, in turn, cast actors to play themselves, etc. As he lives through several marriages and relationships (with offspring, yet!) his life is staged on an ever-changing theater... which grows, exponentially, to become a Manhattan-sized venue. Literally.

Eventually, even the least canny viewers will being to assume that A) either that McArthur grant was in the multi-billion dollar range or B) all of this is/was occurring in Cotard's feverish mind.

It's a Charlie Kaufman movie, ya see, so the point is kind of moot. Compared to the Rubick's Cube  logistics applied here, Synecdoche makes his previous screenplays (“Being John Malkovich," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Adaptation," "Human Nature," "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind") seem like three-piece children's puzzles.

The fact that it takes so long just to describe the film's construction leaves little room to examine the actual relationships it offers, its rich metaphoric imagery, its biting comic undertones or... well, like I warned at the outset Synecdoche is an experience, and for the adventurous moviegoer, a wholly satisfying one at that. Barely contained within the dry wrapper of an “intellectual exercise” (God forbid!) awaits a Whitman's chocolate sampler of emotional goodies, each bursting with a different and powerful flavor.

It might be fruitless to mention some of the concrete elements, but consider: a house that is perpetually aflame; a poison flower tattoo that withers off its wearer's arm, a city of compartmentalized moods,  and the ability to travel in time without going anywhere. (Vonnegut would be jealous!) Yes, Synecdoche (like Eternal Sunshine) is tangentially science fiction. More akin to Solaris or The Man Who Fell to Earth... minus genre trappings. The aliens are humanity.

One of the film's more astonishing achievements is that despite the way it's description “reads” on paper, Kaufman simultaneously preserves and subverts the traditional three-act structure. Synecdoche (itself wordplay on the real/reel “Schenectady”)  plays with time but it rarely meanders around aimlessly, and finally comes together in a way that says more about the human condition than any film in recent memory. Sublime and revolutionary art rarely comes our way that often.

*Catherine Keener, Tom Noonan, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton, Hope Davis, Jennifer Jason Leigh.

THE VIDEO

Synecdoche, New York is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. For a film that is so intrinsically personal, so intimate, the physical/visual scope of Cotard's exponentially expanding universe becomes something truly breathtaking to behold... in retrospect.  It's not about spectacle per se – in fact most of the time you won't notice the city's “size” because Kaufman's deft sleight-of-hand keeps one's eye trained on emotional content.

THE AUDIO

Synecdoche, New York is English 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround. Dialogue, music and sound effects come across loud and clear.

THE EXTRAS

In and Around Synecdoche, New York

The Story of Caden Cotard: In Conversation with Philip Seymour Hoffman

Infectious Diseases in Cattle: Bloggers' Roundtable

Screen Animations

NFTS/Script Factory Masterclass with Charlie Kaufman

FINAL THOUGHT