A few nights ago I watched Synecdoche, NY for the second time. I am not sure when I first saw this movie, but it took my breath away both times. There simply isn't anything as brilliant. Nothing as beautiful and imaginative and haunting and visceral. On both viewings I found it incredibly difficult to sit through because each scene is so intense and resonates so deeply in so many ways.I'm trying to think of the moments that were most captivating and resonant. The early depictions of the marriage, the meanness and isolation of it. The way time flew by, the pacing was horrifying. The sadness between Philip Seymour Hoffman and Samantha Morton's characters, the inability to be lovers despite the deep and true connection. The horror of losing his daughter, reading her diary as she grew up, listening to her become strange and tattooed. The disturbing love affair between his German daughter and his wife's friend (although depicting lesbianism as sinister is a little problematic to me); the dead flowers flaking from her tattoo. Samantha Morton's burning house. The multiplicity of selves and realities, the confusions between versions of people and the people themselves. The pain of seeing a lost love find happiness. Diane Weist's voice narrating his descent to loneliness, his walk toward death...
The whole film, brilliant, breathtaking, beautiful and terrifying.
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