Broken

To say I'm behind on my NYFF reviews is an understatement. I had planned on posting my review today of Gerado Naranjo's I'm Gonna Explode, but I've been unable to form a single cohesive thought in the past two days, owing to Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York, which I saw on Wednesday evening. Simply stated, the film kicked the shit out of me, and drove me to the bottle. (Make that bottles.) Sickness, mortality, despair, love, loss, and the ephemera of time...it was all too much to handle in a single two-hour film.

I'm going to get out of NYC tomorrow to fill my head with autumnal air and to (hopefully) clear it of all that's been troubling me. Obviously I have quite a bit to say about the film -- I just need to figure out how.

If you haven't seen it already, check out the slightly misleading trailer for the film, which includes a fragment of composer Jon Brion's haunting I'm Just a Little Person, as sung by Deanna Storey:

Comments

[Bob Turnbull]

I'm really looking forward to your further comments on the film...I could barely form a couple of sentences about it myself after having seen it in Toronto. I felt bowled over.

[Anhedoniac]

Aw, don't worry about it. It's better that you let any review marinate in the windmills of the mind

[ulises lima]

fuck kaufman, desplechin's a christmas tale is a movie that bowls you over and beats the shit out of you, throws the proverbial kitchen sink at you, hits you with all it has and is directed amazingly. from horror movie to comedy and all points inbetween, desplechin continues to make films that destroy you emotionally and inspire you intellectually. kaufman wishes he could make half the move desplechin has, this year and in years past.

[Filmbrain]

Ulises --

Desplechin's A Christmas Tale, which I've now seen twice, is without question one of the best films of the year, and one that made me re-think my feelings about Margot at the Wedding. (I also hope it stifles some of the rapturous praise for the truly second-rate Rachel Getting Married.)

In terms of his approach to family/relationship dramas and the human condition, which, as you said, speaks as much to the mind as to the heart -- Desplechin is indeed king. Yet Kaufman is coming from an entirely different place -- such that a comparison seems more than a bit specious.

Kaufman can try to deny and/or hide it all he wants, but Synecdoche, New York is unmistakably personal, and whereas other directors have approached these themes I can't think of another film that is as brutally honest while avoiding the narcissism that is a natural byproduct when contemplating, among other things, ones own mortality.

[Jon]

Is I'm Just a Little Person on the official soundtrack? Is there any other place you can purchase it?

[Sh8ysides]

The full version of the song can be heard in streamed form on the SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK facebook page. Lakeshore will be releasing a soundtrack in a few weeks.

[Filmbrain]

Wow! Thanks for that Sh8ysides!

[john john]

I liked it even less than "Human Nature," Kaufman's previous low water mark. The surrealistic touchs were alienating, far more jarring than stirring. And the intellectual content - "Everybody dies" - is hardly earth shaking.

[john john]

The trailer perfectly and adequately encapsulates the film, and then some; it cherry-picks everything you need to know about the narrative - from soup to nuts - ruining all the best surprises (such as what Tom Noonan's character is up to). Seeing the film in its entirety is, honestly, no richer an experience, though it is a longer one.

Damn, I hate trailers like that.

[john john]

Me again. Did you know that WIRED posted a brand-spanking-new audio interview with Kaufman... a 2.5-hour-long interview? http://yofishboy.blogspot.com/2008/09/25-hour-charlie-kaufman-interview.html