10 Movies You Weren't Supposed To Understand
8. Synecdoche, New York
Charlie Kaufman is a master at confusing his audience, and that is why he takes up both the number 7 and 8 spots on this list.
Whether you're a fan of Kaufman's elusive yet thought-provoking movies, or you believe his films to be pretentious and meaningless, you must agree that the director's approach to cinema has been and will always be unique.
However, while many of Kaufman's movies, like Anomalisa and Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, have always been unanimously loved by critics, his bleak philosophical movie Synecdoche, New York is definitely the marmite of all of his movies.
You see, the film has always divided fans and critics alike, because of its incomprehensible story and wall-of-mirrors-like characters.
The movie follows Caden Cotard, an ageing theatre director who, after being left by his wife and daughter, is given a grant to create an innovative piece of art. Faced with his own brutal mortality, due mainly to his increasing ill-heath and loneliness, Cotard spends the rest of his days putting together a surreal, life-like set of New York filled with actors playing out their lives as the people closest to him.
Unlike most of Kaufman's earlier movies, Synecdoche, New York's deeper meaning seems too deep to find.
Perhaps it's the philosophical undertones based around the idea of solipsism For anyone unfamiliar with this concept, you may be more familiar with the famous Descartes' quote: "I think, therefore I am". Solipsism, is essentially the idea that your own consciousness is the only thing provable in this world, and it's a bleak and depressing idea that the movie perfectly encapsulates through Cotard's simulated version of reality.
It's quite unusual that an interest in and understanding of epistemology is necessary for you to make sense of a Hollywood film, but Kaufman stood his ground with Synecdoche, and so that is what we are left with.