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Movie Discussion 6/30/10

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I really don't think it's that deep Cougar. To me it was mostly a formalist piece that used a centuries old literary process called "mise en abyme" wherein the story folds unto itself and becomes self-reflexive, several layers deep. Just cause a guy cries and is despised by all the women he encounters doesn't mean that it's so artsy fartsy that it's not artsy fartsy anymore.

lolz. I thought it was enjoyable and very well acted, but also very pedantic.
 
Matty for me it's about aging and dying and illness and family and loss and regret and loneliness. Not sure how that isn't deep. Maybe we have different definitions of that word. I thought it was a film steeped in irony and metaphoric symbolism, almost a conundrum. And quite unlike anything Kaufman had attempted before. Left me in awe and a bit overwhelmed. If a movie can do that, it wins.
 
Cougar Bait
Matty for me it's about aging and dying and illness and family and loss and regret and loneliness. Not sure how that isn't deep. Maybe we have different definitions of that word. I thought it was a film steeped in irony and metaphoric symbolism, almost a conundrum. And quite unlike anything Kaufman had attempted before. Left me in awe and a bit overwhelmed. If a movie can do that, it wins.
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Cougar, I hear ya, but the film's depth was all in Philip S.H.'s acting IMO. He is the movie.

I guess that I was bothered by the over-the-top formalist treatment of it all. Cause no, I don't think it's deep when your ex comes up to you to say she just gave birth to twins called Robert, Daniel and Alan - it's 40-year-old post-modernistic drivel.

Cougar my definition of a deep movie about loss and family is Paris, Texas, seen on a large screen (for the vast SW USA landscapes) and the volume cranked up to 11 (for Ry Cooder's slide guitar.)

Daffy I'm calming down now.
 
Cougar, Bread swore me off and called me a self-righteous fool for thinking that Synecdoche, New York was pedantic. Cougar I'm afraid he's going to come up here to physically hurt me this time. Cougar I'm panicking.
 
Matty pick up "Spread Open By My Laptop Chick"

He will forgive you

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She looks like an easy prey Cougar. I'm thinking that even if I feel uncomfortable and only manage to ask her to a Wilco concert, I might end up getting laid and/or raped right there and then.

That's my kinda woman Cougar.
 
BTW, just so I can prove I'm not the only asshole of my kind... that critic hated the movie a lot more than I did, but for the same reasons:

http://worldfilm.about.com/od/independentfilm/fr/synecdoche_2.htm

Kaufman is an old hand at this kind of meta-narrative, but without the visual inventiveness and comic edge of collaborators Spike Jonez or Michel Gondry, he seems lost. Synecdoche, New York wants to dig deep into its main character's soul to expose his existential struggles, but Kaufman's postmodern toolbox is ill suited to the task.
There are good reasons why the essential stance of postmodernism is ironic: when self-reflexive effects draw attention to the mechanics of the "text," the audience is distanced from the story's emotional core. Sometimes this distance is the point, and there are other ways to keep us interested -- postmodern masters like Pynchon, Wallace, and Eco dazzle with their humor, erudition, and encyclopedic detail, and even at his most indecipherable, Lynch's fever dreams are rich in evocative contradictions. But moment by moment, the surface of Synecdoche, New York stays drab and bloodless while Kaufman earnestly fishes for feeling in the middle of a surreal slipstream (with John Brion's score as bait).

[...]

And when it's all said and done, what exactly is it that Synecdoche, New York tells us about death, art, and all the rest? The best I could discern is this: art is difficult, love even more so, heartbreak is everywhere, and everybody has to die. Is any of this news? Face to face with mortality is where art begins, not where it ends: the infinite mysteries of life and love all lie the other way. The best stories tackle their themes obliquely, allowing them to emerge rather than forcing them onto a predetermined structure. Synecdoche, New York perfectly illustrates its own futility, and I suppose in that respect, it finally succeeds.
 
The best I could discern is this: art is difficult, love even more so, heartbreak is everywhere, and everybody has to die. Is any of this news? Face to face with mortality is where art begins, not where it ends: the infinite mysteries of life and love all lie the other way.
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Well, this is probably the major disconnect between those impressed and those unimpressed by Synecdoche.

Sure, none of this is "news", but I really don't think any art has to be "news." Yes, we know these things, but many (I'd say most) of us let these things flit around in the peripheral of our awareness, because they are just too unpleasant to stare at directly. I found Synecdoche did an amazing job of pushing these unpleasant truths into my head while still managing to entertain.
 
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