It’s tempting to get entangled in the little details sparkling throughout Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York. The blimp floating through a replica of New York City inside a massive warehouse. A woman living in a house that never stops burning. A violent revolution staged by actors that occurs completely off-screen. The man who penned Adaptation, Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, perhaps the most distinctive voice amongst his screenwriting peers, dares you to ask, “But what does it mean?” A valid question, but Kaufman’s already moved onto another obtuse, exhilarating and revealing detail. He only has 124 minutes to explain life and spectacularly fails at that, but then again, that’s the point… I think.
There is no synopsis, really. Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) wakes up. He’s a 40 year old theatre director married to an artist specializing in miniature portraits and father to a young girl named Olive. After his wife leaves with daughter in tow to become a revered painter in Europe, Caden receives a MacArthur Genius Grant. He uses it to create a piece of theatre that will encompass his life. As darkly funny and clever as the film is, Kaufman never cracks a smile. Every scene captures the grotesque mundanity of everyday life, which casts the entire film in sickly pale even when it plays out in broad daylight.
Without the stylistic veneer of a director like Michel Gondry or Spike Jonze, Synecdoche, New York can be oppressive, and it makes for sometimes confusing cinema. Kaufman doesn’t bother to mark the passage of time. He gives no audio or visual cues, as if he’d rather we stay just one step behind. In the film, scenes begin in the middle of conversations, without establishing shots. Characters talk, but don’t listen to each other, and we, like Caden, become lost in the passage of time. It adds to an escalating sense of isolation and disconnection from life.
Kaufman, in getting the details just right, immerses us in the life of an artist. Caden attempts to re-create life in all its detail, going as far as replicating New York in a warehouse, in an attempt to capture truth in his art. In the end, though, he misses out on his own life to the point where he watches events in his life occur for the first time onstage. He’s so disconnected from his life, he uses fake tear drops to sob over a discarded gift to his daughter. It’s the fallacy of art, and the whole thing may seem completely narcissistic and pointless, but Kaufman manages to transform all the details into engrossing and emotionally resonant cinema.
In the end, Caden’s play becomes something that’s no longer his. It’s been overtaken by another character, transformed into somebody else’s life and art. Even his attempt to summarize the whole thing is overshadowed by the interpretation of the same sentiment by an actor he hired to play himself. Before the screen fades into the credits, Caden connects with the memory of a life that’s not even his own. It may not make sense, but that’s the power of the film. As repulsive and self-deprecating as it can be, Synecdoche, New York tempts you to entangle yourself in its mess of detail.
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