Sunday, March 15, 2009

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK (2008)

In every passionate film lovers life there comes few movies which made one numb & the experience is hard to put in words. Words always fumble & fall short to explain the multiple layers the film maker has created. ‘Synecdoche, New York’ is such an experience for me. Its one of the finest film making debut attempt of the last year by the brilliant screenplay writer Charlie Kaufman; which remains unnoticed by the audience till day.

Its frustratingly dark life story of theatre director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who is struggling with his everyday life in both personal & professional corners. In his final attempts to create a ‘Magnum opus’, he creates a life size modal of New York inside a warehouse for his ambitious new play. It’s the second half of the film which made me numb & it’s the heart of the film.

Although the film is hard to follow for everyone due to its perplexing & layered screenplay & hard to understand completely after first viewing. Another big barrier to understand the film is its highlighted artistic tone of the film resembling more like watching Bergman or Fellini film. Its highly literary film & so one has to level the standards of watching film like this & so it’s not everybody’s cup of tea. However, the film will be surely regarded as one of the most strikingly originally written screenplay & the creative liberty taken by Kaufman with the medium. Performance of all ensemble cast is just awesome including one of the topnotch one by Hoffman.

Its really difficult for me to say that whether I really appreciate the film in its true colors or not because this is one of the most challenging film I ever encountered to grasp the conceptual depth in single viewing & here I fully agree with great critic Roger Ebert’s review of the film where he wrote that one has to watch it at least two or three times to know it in details.

Highly recommended for all Charlie Kaufman lovers & the audience who has a high taste & love to experience challenging masterpiece.

Ratings-10/10

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