#1. Synecdoche, New York (2008)

(director: Charlie Kaufman; starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener, Emily Watson, Dianne Wiest, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Hope Davis and Tom Noonan)

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players…” This phrase has been quoted and requoted ad nauseam for centuries, but I suspect Charlie Kaufman is one of the few people that truly understood what Shakespeare was implying when he wrote that. Synecdoche, New York is the best film of the decade not because of the cast (whom are all top-notch), the visual look of the set design (which is impressive), or the direction (lead by Kaufman in his directorial debut, which is accomplished). This is a movie that, for those willing to take the time and intellectual power to unweave the intricate network of ideas Kaufman has threaded together in his screenplay, can literally change one’s outlook on life itself. Exactly how, it’s hard to say; everyone seems to interpret the film slightly differently, finding value in it in ways that are unique to the individual, however these individual interpretations frequently remain valid for other viewers, making this a film that rewards even deeper upon further discussion. For me, this movie got me thinking a lot about the philosophy of personal identity, whether a human life can be defined as a ‘narrative’ the way literature, theater and cinema condition us to think of our lives. Think about your day so far today. You interpret it like a story, with yourself as the main character, with a plot that involves getting up, having breakfast, falling in love, growing old, and eventually there will be a curtain call. What does this say about the people around you? That makes them supporting characters in your story, right? To you, I’m someone on a computer halfway across the world whose role in your story is to offer you perhaps ten minutes or more of passing diversion as you surf the internet trying to avoid the rest of your life which is full of other more important supporting characters you may or may not wish to deal with at the moment. The problem is each of these supporting characters are the leads of their own stories, and the roles they assign you to play in the story of their life might be different from the role you want to play… and when you start to break this conception of your life down on a metaphysical level, deep uncertainties about the nature of your existence can begin to arise. This is not what Synecdoche, New York is exclusively about. Other people have taken from it meaning about the way we assume different personas when dealing with different circumstances, how at one moment we must ‘become’ the straight-faced professional, the next we must ‘become’ the affectionate and caring spouse, and later on ‘become’ the affable, laid-back personality with our good friends. Which of these roles is truly our own identity and which are just masks we put on, programmed by watching other member of society behave and imitating them? Yet other people have taken from this film messages about the artist’s inability to represent life or the world around them as it truly is; by necessity art is always in some way a fictionalization, a lie. And yet so many of the truths we assume about the world come from these works of art, so how misguided might our belief systems be based on ‘mistakes’ artists and the rest of society have made in interpreting the world for us? I even read someone who claimed that the movie was really about the lead character’s unrealized need to become a woman. Yeah. I laughed at this notion at first, but then they presented a list of evidence throughout the film that seriously did support this interpretation as possibly being true. Even if you leave the philosophizing behind and just react to the literal story behind the film, it will be hard to not be moved by certain moments, or perhaps laugh at others. The emotional toll of lead character Caden Cotard’s (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) estrangement from his daughter or the numerous failures to be able to maintain a relationship with anyone significant in his life are balanced with lighter moments such as his psychologist using their counseling sessions as a way to promote her books or a surreal reoccurring gag of a house being sold and then resided in all while it was actively on fire. However, make no mistake, Synecdoche, New York is not an easy film to take in on the first viewing, and audiences should definitely know what they are getting into before grabbing the popcorn and throwing the disk in the player when there’s nothing else good on TV. It actually begins fairly easy to follow, most everything within the story seemingly able to be taken at face value, but within the world of the characters years begin to pass them by and characters are taken in unexpected directions, and by the last half hour the film has seemingly abandoned any traces of realism or conventional storytelling and evolved into something much more symbolic and recondite. I won’t even guarantee that everyone will find personal meaning in it, there are perfectly acceptable positions to take against the film, however please do not make the mistake that so many critics did by simply dismissing it after the first glance. That the movie was ignored by so many upon its release in 2008 (earning not a single mainstream movie award or even nomination) was a horrible oversight, but I’m pleased to find more and more people are discovering this film (Roger Ebert’s recent declaration that Synecdoche is his own top choice for the entire decade is sure to earn it more publicity), and hopefully in ten more years it will achieve the status it deserves.

Interview with Charlie Kaufman

Previous / The 21 Best Films of the 21st Century