It’s not the sort of film where your eventual appreciation comes from just checking your brain in at the door or by setting aside all your linear story-telling expectations. More than how did it change you, Alexlumog, I’d like to know what in you was different as you approached and entered Kaufman’s film? What about it had you resisted before that you were able to accept this time?
I’ll have to watch it a second time in a year or so to see if I feel the same way on my second viewing.
I feel like the film has a lot of really good ideas, but on the first viewing I didn’t feel like it came together as such a great film. The film has this character who wants to show you his life and all his problems, then says ‘Hey, what do you care? You’ve got your own problems’. Then you reflect on the horrible things that happened to him you may have found amusing, like his daughter being kept from him and gradually evolved into a character from an experimental french film. Then you think, ‘I want to complain to people about my own problems, but they have their own too’. It really shows you the emotional aspect of the fatalism of life and it’s ability to squash your expectations.
The overall idea of the film is beautiful. The writing and staging of the actual scenes, and a lot of the acting missed the mark. Which is why, it’s the sort of film I’d rather write an essay about than watch again.
But, if it can really seem that much better on the second viewing, I’ll give it another shot in a while.
Axelumog
Like myself you have discovered the devestating sadness of this masterpiece. It is quite simply one of the most astonishingly beautiful movies i’ve ever seen, and while it may seem overwhelmingly depressing it is actually one of the more life affirming films i’ve ever seen. The surreal state this film threw me into was like no other film had done before. Ironically I noticed all of this after only my first viewing.
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@ JIRIN: I felt the same way after my first viewing, give it another shot and see if it doesn’t grab you.
Basically for me it took me one viewing to get past the “conceptual” aspects, and just get swept away by the mood of the piece. It’s tone is spot on and it’s very emotionally powerful, whereas I had it peg’d more like an adaptation or an eternal sunshine scenario where you catch more and more each viewing and it gets a little better, a little better…
Not the case with Synecdoche. It’s power is… something else. It’s like viewing one sets you up… and then viewing two just destroys you.
I wonder if anyone else experienced the one-two punch with this film?
Axelumog
I got the one two punch but for some reason it was in the oposite order from you.
I found the first viewing devestating and in the second viewing i became more acquainted with the conceptual aspects. But of course the second viewing was devestating as well, and the third… and the fourth… and the fifth… and so on
Like Alexumdog and Jirin have stated, my first viewing gave me a general intellectual appreciation for what he was trying to do, but not an overwhelming satisfaction with what had been done. However, I had sort of told myself that I had no reason to watch it again, and I don’t remember why. I’ve since changed my mind, and I think I even own a DVD copy of it* (if I were home I’d go check), and so it is nice to see that what a lot of people got on the first viewing can be retrieved from the second viewing if the first wasn’t as exceptional as the other people appreciated it for.
*Yes, I sometimes buy movies just because they’re really good, even though I have no intention of watching them again. The reasons why are so that
1) If conversations like these come up, I can refer back to them (moot point, I’m halfway around the world now)
2) I can lend them to other people so that they can see them.
3) It ups the sales numbers on good movies.
—PolarisDiB
I wasn’t particularly a fan of Kaufman already when I first engaged my attention with this movie. A lot of things are there that I didn’t notice the first time. If I remember right, I sat still through the credit crawl. There weren’t many people there to begin with and most of them were leaving me behind as I was hoping to connect these names on the screen to an unimaginable feeling I was feeling. Something on that screen had been acting out some strain of dreams. It had aroused a fearful confusion of intellect along with mortal instincts. I was still catching up to the movie even after I was back out on the street with my friends.
I went back to Synecdoche the second time a bit better prepared. Even the first scene in the morning at Caden’s house , I noticed things were up. Time was eliding. Not just hours of the morning but months and years were passing. This movie wasn’t exactly above sight gags. It wasn’t a perfect film by any means, but where it wanted to go and getting halfway there was way deeper than I usually experience on any given day of my life. I paid more attention and gave in to the romance of cinema. I was willing and that movie kissed me back. It felt warm and a little teasing like it wanted me to show more neediness and then it gave back a lot. It stirred passion in me.
I loved it the first time I saw it, and have loved it ever since.
It seemed more depressing to me the first time I watched it. After that viewing, I didn’t think it was as good as some of Kaufman’s other work, but I still loved it (8/10). However, the film stuck with me more than any other film ever has. I began to feel a personal connection with the film and changed my rating (9/10). It continued to haunt me and I even went back and watched specific scenes whenever they seemed to come up in my life. I finally accepted that I had to add it to my list of favorites without a second viewing. Then I watched it again. 10/10.
I think any artist or anyone who wants to be an artist can probably relate to this film. I recently discovered this drawing and was reminded of Kaufman. Caden gets lost on the overpass. If you replace the picture of the flower with the picture itself within the picture, it becomes a parallel of Adaptation.
Another film that became more personal and worked better for me the second time was Brazil. I think after working for a big corporation for long enough, the second viewing was bound to feel much more relatable. It was, and as long as I still work there I will feel like I am living inside that film.
dp
It is definitively my best of the past decade.
I think this is a great film. I’ve seen it twice and it did get better on second viewing. Though quirky, I can’t say overall obviously this story doesn’t leave you in the most festive of moods. But it is what it is. An honest work by a fantastic writer/director. I agree, one of the best films of the past decade.
AxelUmog
So last night I did the blessed Synecdoche Viewing 2 and I was absolutely demolished by it. My initial impression after my first viewing was EH, good, a little greedy tried to cram a lot in there maybe some structural things I would have liked to see differently but some classic Kaufman goodness no doubt, but it was no Adaptation/Being John/Eternal Sunshine… and I thought I’m sure it will grow on me multiple viewings classic Kaufman style, so we’ll see.
But I had no Idea that I was going to be completely derailed by it, and the shocking part is that it wasn’t even intellectually, it was all emotional. What a deeply, deeply, deeply sad, powerful film. And I don’t mean sad in a “your sad when your parents died” kind of sad, more in a dark, beautiful kind of sad.
My first viewing I had it peg’d at around a 6/10. After second viewing I feel like saying an easy 10/10 (even though this is totally illegal in my rating system, a film technically cannot jump 2 points up or down just based on one viewing alone.)
I’ve never had such powerful experience and such a drastic jump from first and second viewing. I heard all the hype everyone throwing Synecdoche on their top of the decade lists, and I thought meh these people just want to pretend like they are intellectuals, this isn’t the real deal…
Well like a blind man said to Jesus one time, that is one fucking good movie.