“I found myself staring blankly at the screen as things got progressively more and more confusing. The tone becomes rather bleak, but without knowing what is real or not, any connection to the characters is lost.”

I can see how this would happen, but did it also happen to you during the final act of Adaptation? Because to me thats so much of the movie, I didn’t necessarily feel I needed to connect to Hoffman’s character. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t, but it became to me more about resolving THE story rather than HIS story, what I liked about the movie was a big bigger and more about my experience than anything else by the end, enjoying the meta and what it may be saying, if anything. Kind of like how the end of Adaptation says more about the story than the characters, who get dramatically changed in that meta commentary about mainstream hackery.

Besides, I dont think you’re supposed to like Hoffman’s character, he is incredibly selfish and like he says, everyone is the lead in their own story. He’s a solipsist and all his friends and family are props.

As for confusing, i didnt necessarily feel confused, but when you have that many feedback loops, yes, I did squirm in my seat, but not in a bored way or annoyed way.

Synecdoche NY is a 4/4 from me.

Initially after watching it I simply was wowed that this was actually made. It seemed impossible that someone somewhere actually put hammer to nail to make these sets, that it was written and edited and put together. Something like this just feels so alien, like it just came to be and got put on screen somewhere. Its impossible to think of Kaufman somewhere saying ‘and action’ or picking certain takes over others. I mean its cinematic, but it didn’t feel like I was watching a movie. Does that make sense?

So I sat around for quite a while afterwards trying to figure out if it meant anything or nothing, because normally the artier films have an easier time pissing me off, as theres a line for me that if crossed, I can turn on an arty film so fast. I’m not fun at OCAD shows…

So I think overall in the end if the movie is about anything, its really about control. I mean it seems kind of obvious when I pieced it together and I guess I’ll venture around to see if theres any reviews that agree with me on this, but on one hand you have Adele who makes microscopic paintings, which though are incredibly detailed given how small they are, are still a little loose and stylized. She’s looked at and is praised as a master of her field. She stays in control while not strangling her work with extreme details and perfection.

Caden on the other hand, makes his universe bigger and bigger and bigger, its completely out of his control, his subjects keep making their own decisions and only make the meta go deeper and deeper, but Caden can’t stop obsessing over all the details and making his vision absolutely perfect, and since at the end he has to let someone else take over for anything to move forward, for it to end and for everyone and him to die, if theres any message at all to the film its pretty much in praise of Adele’s balance, that you can have these lofty aims but at the same time you have to leave enough leash for it to breathe and take on its own abstract qualities…

which is kind of like the movie itself, extremely ambitious but not without its looseness. And even things that seem like non sequitors such as the house constantly on fire, fit into my understanding of the movie. Caden is attracted to her, and while she works with him she personally lives within chaos and (eventually) dies from it. Call it some degree of opposites attract, and maybe why Caden keeps longing for Adele long after she’s gone. Michelle Williams on the other hand completely buys into what Caden is doing until she can’t take it anymore, it wasn’t healthy for her.

So maybe I’m full of shit and as pretentious as so many people find this movie, but thats what i managed to glean from it in the couple hours since watching it, in a theater where of 11 people, I was the only one left watching by the end. I think I was completely alone by the time the Zeppelin showed up on screen.

one more little thing

the name

Caden Cotard

from wikipedia:
The Cotard delusion or Cotard’s syndrome, also known as nihilistic or negation delusion, is a rare neuropsychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that he or she is dead, does not exist, is putrefying or has lost his/her blood or internal organs. Rarely, it can include delusions of immortality.

seem about right?

Mostly it just reminded me of Lady in the Water because it was this ambitious thing that just borders on lunacy. It doesn’t have the same fairy tale feel or anything.