Synecdoche, New York
Directed by Charlie Kaufman
- drama
The story
A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.
What it’s like
Cramped, sickly interiors under flat, greenish fluorescent light give way to vast warehouse sets lit like dusk that never ends, with rooms built inside rooms and actors wandering through them in drab wool and muted ochres. The camera tends toward static, carefully composed frames that hold a beat too long, so that an ordinary kitchen or hospital corridor becomes unsettling in its stillness, and the handheld intimacy arrives mostly in quiet close-ups of faces trying not to give themselves away. Sound is sparse: the hum of machinery, distant traffic, a plaintive piano or a single held note that swells when the sense of loss grows heavy. The vibe is melancholy bordering on bleak, dryly funny and aching by turns, with a sense of time running out that suits a late night alone or a long, quiet afternoon. Pacing is deliberate and often disorienting, and its emotional register is restrained rather than tearful, following a middle-aged man who keeps mistaking his work for his life while the people around him drift further out of reach. Intensity is low on violence and gore, with sex and nudity present but non-graphic, and the sadness is psychological rather than shocking, though the existential despair can feel heavy. It is for viewers who enjoy surreal, philosophical art cinema about art, mortality and failed intimacy, and who don't need the story to resolve neatly.
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