We look back…
NB: The following contains spoilers for Synecdoche, New York.
Cadens house feels small and cluttered, as though the walls are bearing down on him.
The light is cold and rancid.
The interiors arent the brightly-lit open spaces were used to seeing in Hollywood productions.
The haircuts look conspicuously uncoiffed; faces are pallid and careworn.
Characters chatter over each other, mumble, or talk at cross-purposes.
Theres a creepy guy outside, shadowing Cadens movements.
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Then again, Kaufman isnt the kind of writer whod write a straightforward drama.
Thanks for getting me in right away, Caden says a quip so wry that it almost passes unnoticed.
Synecdocheis filled with moments that play with the notion of time in similar ways.
With images and characters as spiky as this, its perhaps inevitable thatSynecdochedivided opinion when it appeared in 2008.
Too many directions to go.
Caden therefore becomes an actor in his own play, with Millicent feeding instructions to Caden via an earpiece.
Youve struggled into existence and are now slipping silently out of it.
This is everyones experience.
The specifics hardly matter; everyone is everyone.
Maybe this is the comfort Caden finds at the end of his life.
Synecdoche, New Yorkis a melancholy and sometimes frustrating film, but also one densely packed with possible meanings.
Hes selfish, imperfect, incomplete, yet ultimately, far from a bad person.
To paraphrase Dianne Wiests character, Synecdoche, New Yorkis everyones experience.
