Mind Fuck DVD Review of the Month: Synecdoche, New York

I have a problem. I like Charlie Kaufman. And I know not everybody does. There's a very strong love/hate thing that happens when his name is brought up in mixed company. But either way, the guy screams unique from the tallest rooftop. And me? Like I said, I like the somebitch. I loved Being John Malkovich. I really liked Adaptation and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and enjoyed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. So, when I saw the trailer for his directorial debut Synecdoche, New York - and knew the premise - I was like Hurley when they found all those Dharma rations.

So what's the problem? Well, I like Kaufman and Synecdoche, New York, well, it pushed the limits of what even I could fucking handle. One of the more trying film experiences that I've had in a very, very long time. But for the layman non Kaufman luva - Christ Almighty. You'll probably feel like Ted Striker just cosied up next to your seat on the plane to tell you about Macho Grande (whether you grab the noose, the pistol or commit hari kari is completely up to you).

Spoilers ahead! Look out!

Synecdoche, New York is about theater director Caden Cotard (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), who after losing his daughter to his wife and his wife to her art, Germany and a probable lesbian, begins to stage an enormous play in an enormous warehouse in the middle of Manhattan. The set for this play is a full scale recreation of the city of Manhattan built inside the warehouse, where hundreds of thousands of actors are hired to play themselves. The rest of Caden's life is spent recreating this extremely personal piece of theater, where everything in his life begins to blur together, along with art and reality. (Yep, admit it. You just said "Fuckin' A!" out loud then looked around to see if anyone heard you. I'm with you people.)

Kaufman puts us directly inside Caden's head, thus placing us squarely inside his own head as well. And at times, I can't lie to you folks, I was looking for the safe warm place and my power animal. Caden throughout the film, has some unnamed condition that is slowly eating him away both physically and mentally. He also loses touch with actual time and the movement of time - at one part in the film thinks his wife's been gone a week but it's actually a year. A person buys a house from a realtor that is only slightly on fire, and continues to get worse throughout and Caden's daughters diary continually updates itself, never you mind she's in Germany. I think.

But the play inside the warehouse with the full scale city of Manhattan built begins to mirror reality so much, that actors are hired to play Caden himself and his assistant, thus causing a second warehouse to be needed to be built within the full scale replica of Manhattan inside the warehouse. Get it? And art folds over and over onto itself until all of these threads - his daughter, his marriage(s)?, his medical condition, age, art, loneliness, creative fear, love, death - merge together blurring all lines of conventional storytelling. And they weave together in the end that concludes this film in the only way it can. Leaving us only partially less confused than we were only two hours ago. I was also half expecting Emilio Estevez to wake up in the bathtub to tell me that the whole film was all but a dream. But alas - thank fuck, I was wrong.

Look, let me just say this. I get it. It's not a literal film. It's like his 8 1/2. I know what Kaufman was trying to do here. I know what he's trying to say. Or at least I think I do. Or maybe I don't have one iota of a clue. But after I see a film like this, I always ask myself if I'm better for seeing it. And in this case, I say yes. The performances are fucking aces across the board with Samantha Morton, Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Emily Watson, Dianne Wiest, J.J. Leigh and Phillip Seymour Hoffman pouring their collective guts out into these roles bringing realism to such an absurd filmed reality. And PSH? Seriously - he can/should/does/will make any film better with him in it. And this one definitely uses him to its advantage.

And after all was said and done and the final curtain lowered on this internal, indulgent adventure , a part of me wanted to call it pure genius - a work of ambition and originality. A piece of art much bigger than what any cinema screen could hold. But unfortunately, it's not. You know those little metal link puzzles that you try to pull apart, but usually just end up chunking across the room in a Hulk-like rage? It's like that. Except there aren't 2 links, there's 73. Million.

Synecdoche, New York is great in concept, not in execution. Some critics are hailing it the best thing since Ron Silver in Blue Steel. And who the hell knows? Maybe it is. I just didn't get this one. `Cause to me, while ironic, witty and funny at times, it's just a tangled, boring mess. A slow, odd, self indulgent web of good ideas lost in some surrealistic depressing purgatory between life, dreams and death. And while ambition and originality are qualities much underused in movies today, they alone do not make a great film - or even a really good one at that.

My father blissed me out once. Once...