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Synecdoche: a term denoting a part of something is used to refer to the whole thing. Charlie Kaufman is probably the best known screenwriter working today, largely due to his semi-autobiographical characters in Spike Jonze’s 2002 film Adaptation, which saw him and his fictional twin brother nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards. Other scripts include the brilliant Being John Malkovich (1999) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), all of which are surrealist treatments of identity, creativity, and his own life. It comes as no surprise, then, that Synecdoche, New York, Kaufman's directorial debut, is his most ambitious work so far, though probably even less approachable than previous outings. In short, the film focuses on hypochondriac Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a theatre director in Schenectady, New York. Despite being successful in his work, his private life is in shambles. Unable to maintain any relationship and seeing his girlfriend (Catherine Keener) and daughter leave him for Berlin, a timely MacArthur Grant pulls him out of his downward spiral to mount his biggest project to date: a brutally honest theatre production in New York that will hopefully give meaning to his life after only staging other people’s creative work.
This outline of the basic story of the film doesn’t manage to come even close to the wide reach and rich subtext the viewer is faced with and may be daunted by. A large portion of the movie is told in metaphors and seemingly unexplained visual images. A burning house one of Caden's girlfriends (Samantha Morton) lives in, a mysterious man (Tom Noonan) following him or the various illnesses befalling Caden one day before being gone the next time we see him. The line between reality and the imaginary is blurry at best, similar to Kaufman’s previous works. Another recurring motif is his main character’s inability to establish his own identity and place in the world, something that Caden attempts through the staging of his big play, which takes over a decade and ends up as a multi-layered simulacrum of his own life with actors playing himself and actors playing the actor playing Caden. Confusing, indeed. But in a lot of ways, Synecdoche, New York works on a purely emotional level with the actual depicted events taking a backseat to the characters’ emotions and troubles at any given time. And this is precisely what saves the film from being too ambitious and confusing. It gives the audience a common ground from which the various layers of what happens on screen can be experienced and unravelled without creating a nagging need to constantly decipher the whole film a la later David Lynch works. Kaufman’s direction is assured and visually impressive, if nothing truly innovative. In a way, the fairly traditional staging only heightens the sense of surrealism by making the uncanny seem normal. Hoffman is at the top of his game, as always, and supported by a stellar secondary cast with special mention of Tom Noonan who really should take on more roles. Synecdoche, New York is no popcorn flick to watch while leaning back, but a film to truly experience while it takes you on a sometimes bewildering, sometimes frustrating, yet always touching ride. |
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