Cotard Syndrome
I recently bought Synecdoche, New York on Amazon. I was incredibly excited to watch it after hearing only good things (well, only good things from people whose opinion I trust, at any rate). I am a big fan of all of Charlie Kaufman’s movies, especially Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich, and I have intentionally sought out and purchased every movie he’s ever written (even so far as watching every episode of The Dana Carvey Show) so I was particularly stoked to see what Mr. Kaufman did on his own, without any mitigating factors, surely the film would be the purest distillation of his auterist sensibilities and humours, right?
Right. The film is “difficult” in every way. There are layers upon layers of meta humor which fold in upon themselves. The film progresses with the logic of a dream despite the fact that it does not take place in a dream. The logic is so twisted and knotty that you have to watch the film multiple times in order to “get” it. These are all the things which excited me about the film in the first place. Films like this rev my engine. Directors like Christopher Nolan, Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, David Fincher and Quentin Tarantino make films like this expressly for nerds like me, and I love them.
Synecdoche certainly delivers on this front. Meta jokes, flashback humor, and breaking of the fourth wall all occur with thrilling abandon. However, the film just didn’t connect with me in the same way that Kauman’s other movies did. After I thought about it for a while, I came to the conclusion that I’m just not old enough to “get” this movie. The film is essentially a mid-life crisis in the shape of a movie. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, because I did. I understand what it is saying about the cycle of life, and I agree with it. However, it certainly didn’t reduce me to a quivering, sobbing mess like it seems to have done to a lot of people who you think would be pretty jaded about these things by now. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that a film that was initially pitched as a “real life” horror movie would be almost entirely concerned with death, loss, abandonment, axiety, separation, aging and lovelessness.
So maybe I’m just not old enough. I don’t have kids. That’s why this movie doesn’t hurt. And I like movies that hurt. Catharsis is, I think, one of the greatest goals of art. There’s so few films that do it well. Maybe in 10 years I’ll absentmindedly throw it on one night when I don’t have anything to do and find myself having to explain to my children why Dad is sobbing uncontrollably. Until then, I can continue to enjoy it on an intellectual level, but I think I have to wait a while for it to really hit me where it hurts.
