So, Shoot Me...I thought Synecdoche, New York was better than The Wrestler

I think the average movie-goer would prefer The Wrestler, if for no other reason than because it has an intelligible narrative. Of course, there are other reasons to appreciate this movie as well—Mickey Rourke does a fantastic job as Randy “The Ram”, and I like Marisa Tomei in every role I’ve ever seen her in, even if the movie is terrible—also, the story itself, and the details involved with being a professional wrestler were interesting. Did you know pro-wrestlers carried razor blades in their bandages (or, as I read in a recent interview with Hulk Hogan—in their mouth) to cut themselves with during matches? Or that the wrestlers themselves worked out much of the choreography of matches? I didn’t. Also, director Darren Aronofsky has some really cool camera shots, particularly when the camera follows Randy around the deli/freezer, and during matches. Here’s what I didn’t like: the heavy-handed, in-my-face Christ metaphor. Gran Torino pulled it off; The Wrestler did not.

I guess there aren’t really any rules for making a character into a Christ metaphor, but for me, there needs to be more involved than allusions made between said character and Christ, feeling bad for the character, and then the character dying. In Gran Torino, Walt died for someone else. Through his death, the Vietnamese family found freedom. Randy’s death was more of an abandonment than anything—he had a daughter, and a woman that was arguably starting to love him. She too was getting older, and her body could no longer keep up with her profession—should she have committed suicide? (Which is basically what Randy did.)

Randy lacked the courage to live up to the expectations either relationship demanded. So he “Ram Jams” his buddy off a corner-post, knowing full well that his heart is going to go kaploosh. Was Randy’s a sad existance? Yes. And the movie was a striking portrait of a man who could do only one thing well, and had nothing left when that part of his life was gone—Springsteen’s proverbial one-trick pony. The Wrestler is a good film—but not great.

Synecdoche, New York, however, is unlike any film in recent memory. Written and directed by Charlie Kaufman (the first time he’s done both), it works on emotions in a strange, and fascinating way. (For example, I think of the weird and sudden sadness I experienced at the end of Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic, when Bill Murray sees the shark, and everyone in the sub puts a hand on his shoulder and he says something about fifth grade being his favorite year. Why did that make me want to cry? You could argue that it’s because the best year of someone’s life was over at 11, but I suspect there’s more going on…) S, NY is endlessly reflexive, to the point of being unbearable, but just when you think you can’t take any more, the bizarre (but strangely resonant, I think, especially toward the end) surrealism is taken up another level. (I was writing in the second-person there, but rather than fix it, I’ll just add this—I loved it. But it’s somewhat avant-garde (read: artsy), and I think many people would lose patience with it very quickly.)

It’s about a play-write (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who receives a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, and proceeds to start creating a play that closely resembles real life as possible. He builds a replica of NY in a theater, hires actors to play himself and people he knows...maybe you can see where this is headed, but some of that is reflected in the movie’s title. “Synecdoche” is a poetic term for a part symbolizing a whole, for instance: farmhand. The hand represents the person. Anyway. Philip Seymour Hoffman is brilliant the entire time, there’s some really incredible writing, and if you have any patience for somewhat incomprehensible films, stick it out until the end, the emotional payoff is (I think) worth it.

Cheers.