{"id":3347,"date":"2008-10-17T01:43:30","date_gmt":"2008-10-17T00:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=3347"},"modified":"2008-11-03T04:48:12","modified_gmt":"2008-11-03T03:48:12","slug":"lff-2008-synecdoche-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2008\/10\/17\/lff-2008-synecdoche-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"LFF 2008: Synecdoche, New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the last decade Charlie Kaufman<\/a> has become one of those rare screenwriters whose work has even overshadowed the directors he has worked with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is quite a feat given that he has collaborated with Spike Jonze<\/a> (on Being John Malkovich<\/a> and Adaptation<\/a>) and Michel Gondry<\/a> (Human Nature<\/a> and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, it is fair to say that all those films bear certain recognisable tropes: ingenious narratives, surreal images and a tragi-comic view of human affairs.<\/p>\n

It would also be fair to assume that his directorial debut would be similar, but Synecdoche, New York<\/strong><\/a> does not just bear token similarities to his previous scripts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In fact it is so Kaufman-esque<\/em> that it takes his ideas to another level of strangeness, which is quite something if you bear in mind what has come before.<\/p>\n

The story centres around a theatre director named\u00a0Caden Cotard<\/a>\u00a0(Philip Seymour Hoffman<\/a>) who starts to re-evaluate life after both his health and marriage start to break down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He receives a grant to do something artistically adventurous and decides to stage an enormously ambitious production inside a giant warehouse.<\/p>\n

What follows is a strange and often baffling movie, complete with the kind of motifs that are peppered throughout Kaufman’s scripts: someone lives in a house oblivious to the fact that it is permanently on fire; a theatrical venue the size of several aircraft hangars is casually described as a place where Shakespeare is performed; and visitors to an art gallery view microscopic paintings with special goggles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>But despite the oddities and the Chinese-box narrative, this is a film overflowing with invention and ideas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It explores the big issues of life and death but also examines the nature of art and performance – a lot of the film, once it goes inside the warehouse, is a mind-boggling meditation on our lives as a performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Imagine The Truman Show<\/a> rewritten by Samuel Beckett<\/a> and directed by\u00a0Luis Bu\u00f1uel<\/a>\u00a0and you’ll get some idea of what Kaufman is aiming for here.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I found a lot of the humour very funny, but the comic sensibility behind the jokes is dry and something of an acquired taste.<\/p>\n

Much of the film hinges on Seymour Hoffman’s outstanding central performance in which he conveys the vulnerability and determination of a man obsessed with doing something worthwhile before he dies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The makeup for the characters supervised by Mike Marino<\/a>\u00a0is also first rate, creating a believable ageing process whilst the sets are also excellent, even if some of the CGI isn’t always 100% convincing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The supporting cast too is very impressive:\u00a0Catherine Keener<\/a>,\u00a0Michelle Williams<\/a>,\u00a0Samantha Morton<\/a>,\u00a0Emily Watson<\/a>,\u00a0Hope Davis<\/a>,\u00a0Tom Noonan<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Dianne Weist<\/a>\u00a0all contribute fine performances and fit nicely into the overall tone of the piece.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although the world Kaufman creates will alienate some viewers, it slowly becomes a haunting meditation on how humans age and die.<\/p>\n

As the film moves towards resolution it becomes surprisingly moving with some of the deeper themes slowly, but powerfully, rising to the surface.<\/p>\n

This means that although it will have it’s admirers (of which I certainly include myself) it is likely to prove too esoteric for mass consumption as it has a downbeat tone despite the comic touches.<\/p>\n

Having seen it only once, this is a film I instantly wanted to revisit, so dense are the layers and concepts contained within it.<\/p>\n

On first viewing it became a bit too rich at times for it’s own good. However, it isn’t often that filmmakers aim this high.<\/p>\n

I certainly haven’t seen a film like this in years.<\/p>\n

N.B.\u00a0Apparently the first word of the title is pronounced \u201cSyn-ECK-duh-kee\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The following video from Cannes back in May showed the confusion over how to pronounce it:<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n
\n

Synecdoche, New York<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0screens at the London Film Festival on Tuesday 28th and Wednesday 29th October<\/em><\/p>\n

* It opens in the US on October 24th in limited release but the UK release is TBA *<\/p>\n

UPDATE 25\/10\/08: In an earlier version of this article I wrote that Judy Chin<\/a> was in charge of makeup for this film but just to clarify, Mike Marino<\/a>\u00a0designed the ageing makeups whilst Judy was department head of the rest.\u00a0(Thanks to Mike for getting in touch to point this out.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

>\u00a0Synecdoche, New York<\/a>\u00a0at the IMDb<\/div>\n

>\u00a0Watch the press conference at the official Cannes site
\n<\/a>> Check out the reaction from Cannes about the film<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the last decade Charlie Kaufman has become one of those rare screenwriters whose work has even overshadowed the directors he has worked with.\u00a0 This is quite a feat given that he has collaborated with Spike Jonze (on Being John Malkovich and Adaptation) and Michel Gondry (Human Nature and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind).\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[231,467,585,2789,230],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}