Synecdoche, New York
"Synecdoche" tells the story of theatre director Caden Cotard (Hoffman) whom we meet as a middle-aged man and follow until his death. Caden and his wife (Keener) are having marital problems and soon enough, she has left him, taking their daughter with her to pursue her career as an artist in Berlin.
Heartbroken, lonely and with his physical condition in a state of deterioration, Caden receives news that he has been awarded the MacArthur grant. With the financial independence the grant brings, he sets about creating the New York that he inhabits inside a warehouse in an attempt to create an epic-scale, naturalistic piece of groundbreaking theatre that mirrors his life. This involves Caden and his various love interests being followed by actors, as the director tries to find the most genuine representation of life possible.
Kaufman's film is likely to divide people into two parties: those who believe it to be pretentious, self-indulgent nonsense and those who feel it is a masterpiece. The arguments for both are very strong: the 'nonsense' crowd will decry that Kaufman has gone too far in his existential musings, creating a film that misses connecting with an audience in favour of philosophising. They will say that in trying to exercise the audience's grey matter, he has left them unmoved and unable to care for Caden and the messy, almost nonsensical world in which he lives.
Yet, Kaufman deserves praise for his boldness and scope. Rarely has a film attempted to probe such universal themes as life, death and love in such a beautiful and idiosyncratic manner, refusing to dilute the complexity of them in favour of box office success. Also, everything about "Synecdoche" seems like it has been painstakingly created, so rich and detailed are the characters, settings and relationships. "Synecdoche" certainly had the potential to be a masterpiece, but Kaufman has, at the very least, attempted to push the boundaries of cinema and come out with his head held high.