Freak Engine

I originally rented Synecdoche New York (SNY)  because Charlie Kaufman wrote and directed it and I’ve loved his work in the past.  It certainly wasn’t because I’d seen a trailer or any other advertising for the film.  I don’t even know how I found out about it in the first place.  It baffles me that studios, in this case Sony, will put money into a project and then leave it to die on the vine.  This one didn’t even get a decent theatrical run, but that’s beside the point.  The point is that SNY is one of the most brilliant films I’ve ever seen.  I watched it twice in a row the first time I rented it and I keep going back for more now that it’s available as a Netflix stream.

The story defies description in that way that most of Kaufman’s work does.  You remember Charlie Kaufman, right?  He’s the writer who Hollywood has embraced as their “quirky” cousin who’s allowed to sit at the big table as long as he doesn’t flick any peas at other family members.  The awesome thing is that pea flicking is almost all he does.  He wrote Adaptation, that indictment of Hollywood wherein Nic Cage plays a fictional version of Charlie Kaufman and the actual screenplay credit is shared by the real Charlie and his fake twin brother.  He also wrote Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the Michel Gondry film that proved to me that the French director could do more than direct super cool Björk music vids.  There’s also Human Nature and Being John Malkovich on the list but the subject today is his directorial debut, SNY.

The film stars Philip Seymour Hoffman in the role of Caden Cotard, a successful theatre director with a troubled personal life.  His problems drive him to seek answers through the only medium he understands, the theatre.  That hardly does this absurdist creation justice but it’ll have to do as I’m not fond of describing plots and even if I were I wouldn’t know where to begin here.  The film is about everyone’s life.  Singular.  Life.  Our life.

The film is honest despite being steeped in layers of fakeness.  It represents our world within the concentric layers of it’s plot and players.  Stephen King once wrote that a good writer reveals the truth through lies.  Charlie Kaufman is a very good writer and his lies are some of the best going.  The film is all the things I want a good film to be–engaging, funny, sad, disturbing, thought-provoking, entertaining, surprising… Those “I laughed, I cried” sorts of reviews usually make me wanna upchuck but in this case it’s true.

This is the kind of movie that makes you think about it for a long time after you’ve seen it.  I think there are a great many different themes and ideas the viewer can walk away with so I won’t impose my own on you except to say that the lead character’s surname, Cotard, is most certainly a clue.  I believe Kaufman is pointing out how our modern society has pushed many of us into a state of being very similar to that of the Cotard Delusion.  Then again, what do I know?  Maybe I’m not even writing this.  Maybe I’m having my stunt double handle it today.

I’ve heard that a great many people hate SNY.  They say they don’t get it and it’s slow and boring.  I can understand why a brain dead mollusk might think that, but it doesn’t make the mollusk right.  I encourage you to see it with an open mind and decide for yourself.  We Americans have been trained by our own cinema to accept external action as the only kind of valid onscreen action.  Fortunately, films like SNY reveal a vibrant world of internal action that can actually be created expressly for the screen.  This story was never intended to be read on the page but to be seen onscreen.  If the art of filmmaking has it’s William Faulkner, surely Kaufman must be him.

Food, Inc. is a terrible title for a good documentary about the effects our nation’s fast food lifestyle have had on every type of food we Americans consume.  I’ll fess up here at the beginning – I’ve been a vegetarian for eighteen years or so and I have very strong opinions about the industrialization of the meat industry.  What surprised me in this documentary was how much MY food has been tainted too.

Director and co-writer Robert Kenner takes a direct approach with this material.  Sure, there’s lots of fluffy graphics intended to imprint the film with a certain style factor, but in documentaries content is king and the content that Kenner and company dig up is well worth a listen.  I won’t go into the morbid details here but the film’s main point is that the food-related policies of the US and the eating habits of its citizens have had many awful side effects, some intended and some not.  Increases in illegal immigrants, e-coli outbreaks, cruelty to animals, and to human workers as well can all be linked to these choices.

If you want to know more, I suggest you take the time to watch the film.  It impressed me because it wasn’t filled with the usual propaganda from folks like PETA (I’m a vegetarian and even I think they’re crazy!).  Kenner is even-handed in his approach and doesn’t include anything simply for its shock value.  Are there some shocking visuals?  Yes, but nothing so horrible that it would ruin your evening.  The information that’s communicated is much more disturbing.

Food Inc definitely has a point of view but it isn’t that of the zealot.  It’s the point of view of a well reasoned argument.  Hell, Kenner even included information about an organic foods company president who was very complimentary of Wal-Mart.  The guy isn’t in love with Wal-Mart by any stretch but he uses them to show us that consumer demands will be met by retailers…even the most aggressive retailer on the planet.  Wal-Mart grocery sections are expanding their organic food choices simply because customers want them and will pay the extra money to buy them.

One farmer emotionally pleads with America to demand better.  I couldn’t agree more.  As is mentioned in the film, every dollar spent is a vote.  If enough of us buy something, ANYTHING, that thing will flourish and spawn imitations and various permutations until we stop spending.  If we refuse a product, how long do you think it’ll last?  People think they don’t have a choice but they do.  YOU do.  At the end of the day, this is the message of Food, Inc and it’s delivered very effectively.  I just hope people listen.