It was Charlie Kaufman's attempt at Being David Lynch more or less.

"frustrating, enigmatic, and brilliant film."
a perfect description.

Matt Singer's PSH impression was hilariously accurate.

It's funny... when I masterbate, all I need is my hand. But when Charlie Kaufman masterbates, apparently he needs an entire film crew and Phillip Seamour Hoffman.

I was wondering when slashfilm was going to talk about this movie. I really cannot wait to listen to this. Oh yeah, the movie was great and I would recommend it to anyone.

Either way it feels good, though.

Thanks for devoting an entire conversation to Kaufman's film. It's a nice juxtaposition and actually a nice surprise to see that you guys did this.

I really enjoyed the film, but didn't realize how much until the themes started to tumble back at me. Although it's flawed, the ideas in the film stick with you. When you realize that you are thinking about it days afterward, you realize just how good it might be.

*The consumption of art was the primary theme for me -- the "artist" as some sort of medium for a message that he/she may never understand. Sometimes that message comes through in waves and sometimes it is lost in the subterfuge. When art, in essence, is a reflection of life, Kaufman implies that a life itself must be a work of art. Complex stuff, and amazing to watch an artist (Kaufman) try to articulate it.

*I saw Cadon's frequent episodes of being mistaken for someone or something else as a continuation of the themes of "power and control." Even though you can hope or try to be something or someone that fits the box in your head, everyone else has the power over you to interpret you the way they want. With art, these interpretations come from critics or members of an audience. With life, it can come from everything -- from your spouse to an old woman sitting in a hallway. I think Kaufman played on the "masculinity thing" as something quirky that hyper-illustrated this lack of control, so much so that Cadon finally just went along with it by casting a woman as himself.

*This same lack of power/control is found in the scene where his daughter is dying. Cadon finally has a chance to say all of the things he's wanted to say to her, but he realizes that none of it will make any sense filtered through "the art" of an interpreter. That circular theme therefore comes back on itself here. It's completely tragic.

* and that song is about as good as a song for a film can get. "Melancholy" is the word that comes to mind. Do people really believe that Songs like "Little Person" and "The Wrestler" are inferior film songs to Jai Ho? Unbelievable.

I agree with everything in this post. The song is amazing, I've been listening to it all day.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was simply powerful.

Just my two cents.

Wow, I've been waiting for something like this.

Personally when I finished the movie, I felt extremely off and thats why I loved it.

Brilliant movie.

It's so crazy how this movie makes people feel. I've heard a whole variety of answers as to what people think of the movie. I felt a little off too but that really is the beauty of it. It really makes me want to watch the movie again and again just to try to fully understand the movie. I'm actually thinking about buying it, I think it's worth it, it really is that good.

Synedoche, New York accurately replicates the feeling of going insane. Its devolving narrative should be praised as a brave experiment, NOT, mind you, a successful one.

It's the kind of movie that if your interpretation drew from parallels the creators had never thought of, they would likely chalk it up to synchronicity, rather than admitting they threw so many layers of meta at the screen that any authorial vision it started with had clearly gone blind by the end.

The movie is not brilliant, it is simply smarter than you. It may take multiple viewings to get the whole story, but this makes it tedious and unfocused. It may have deep characters, but that's because it has several versions of each character, played by various actors. It sets the stage for great drama, but does nothing to explain its purpose, unfairly baiting the viewer to misinterpret it as pure absurdism and promoting elitism among its defenders.

It's best feature is perhaps a degree of self-awareness: the inelegance with which it handles these deeper themes is properly reflected by the main character's disconnected reconstruction of his city. It simply doesn't have the pretentiousness you'd expect of film this obtuse.

Nothing however, can take away from the ability of its actors to perform with arresting emotion, even while integrity of the narritive (and its fictional set) is collapsing around them. Its a movie you have to watch if you like human beings. The story itself, however, is mere proof of a concept for a future, more approachable, more insightful, more enjoyable movie.

Thanks for taking the time to review this...I was hoping though for you all to go into some of the other issues of the film likeis it all real...how much is it real?...is he dreaming at times is it the disease that is consuming him...I guess we all have our ideas...as a father of two kids though the opal stripper scene was heart breaking along with his last day with the young opal on the street corner..thanks for paying attention to films like this

Synecdoche as an Existentialist Film:

While Synecdoche does nothing to make Existentialism more appealing, or comprehensible, it does heavily bias the movie-viewing experience in favor of the existentialist.

1. Angst - that schmancy german word for being surrounded by death and the knowledge of death. This is what the movie is about, and the characters say just that at several points. Cadon is a man paralyzed by his fear of death, unable to make any meaningful or daring choices in life, he settles for explaining his indecision through full-size replica art. This is established early in the movie, when he casts all young people in Death of a Salesman to show how the oppressiveness of death in the face of creating a meaningful life is an immenant problem for the young as well as the old.

2. Ontological Temporality - this is a concept you have to grasp for the movie to make any fucking sense. Time in Synecdoche does not move logically, it progresses based on the choices the characters make. Huge swaths of time are skipped over, either through traditional montage, or by surreal condensed scenes which represent months of activity despite only lasting a couple minutes. It moves how time seems to go as we reflect back on our lives, it visual represents our attempt to make sense of it all.

3. Inescapable Freedom - Decision-making in Synecdoche is portrayed as being timeless. Hazel's decision to buy the house includes her decision to marry a certain man and die in a fire, she is made wholly accountable for the consequences of her actions, including those she could not have logically forseen.

4. Life as Art - The upshot of this otherwise downer philosophy is the revelation that meaning in life is not defined by God, but created by humanity amidst the threat of non-existence. This is represented in Synecdoche by making life and art wholly indistinguishable. Everything Cadon lives becomes part of his art project, and every meaningful experience is reflected back on itself. As living beings we must make art of ourselves, yet must create distance to appreciate this art - making the process quite muddled and confusing if you're as introspective as Cadon.

5. Authenticity - Life within the warehouse replica of Synecdoche is defined by a series of post-it cues from which the actors construct their characters. As living beings we imagine ourselves to be actors, trying to respond believably to the cues created by life events, but to Satre this is a mistake, we have the option to ignore these cues and rescript ourselves, and that is why we suffer. If we, like the actors, had no choice in the matter, we, like the actors, would not suffer in our roles. An actor playing a grieving widow does not suffer as a grieving widow. As real people, we know in the depths of our soul that we can do better, but are too afraid to flip the script and make our own cues. This is called Bad Faith.

I will admit the movie gets better the more you analyze it, but that can be said for plenty of movies that also have surface value.