Reviews

There are two conversations in A Will For The Woods that can be considered. One is the idea of the green burial, an act of laying to rest the deceased that eschews the use of traditional burial methods for the sake of the earth. The second, however, is a much harder conversation about mortality, the inevitability of death, and the power that a peaceful, meaningful burial has on one particular individual. The filmmakers of A Will For The Woods build their documentary for the former and end up leaping into the heart of the latter.

The film follows Clark Wang as he prepares for an inevitably untimely demise and the depth of meaning he finds in his inevitable green burial. What works as an exploration into an environmentally beneficial method of laying to rest becomes a journey with Clark into the kind of person he is and, more importantly, what he leaves behind - both in life and in death.

It is oftentimes difficult to stay as close and as intimate to Clark as the filmmakers do, but there's no question as to the potency of its emotional core: a genuine desire to bear the weight of death with a final meaningful act. It can be much to bear in one sitting, but A Will For The Woods cares deeply for the man it follows, and the depths in which we come to know, understand, and feel for Clark are powerful.

I got to see a screening of this in Boston, and let me admit to the fact that I consider this film a masterpiece. It is a rare entry into the market: an ambitious film, a gamble that, sadly, makes me question how much success it could garner in the mainstream box-office.

Charlie Kaufman, however, is not a screenwriter/director who inherently aims his sights on the box-office or the mainstream (anybody who questions this has to question Being John Malkovich). Instead, his greatest strength is a boundless creativity and insight into the qualities of humanity, and Synecdoche, New York is no exception. Rather, it is the apex of Kaufman at his most insightful, his most ambitious, and (as his directorial debut) his most hauntingly beautiful.

The plot itself is a contradiction of simplicity and complexity: to say that it is about Philip Seymour Hoffman trying to put on a larger than life play is an accurate statement, yet it completely fails to capture what Synecdoche, New York tries to convey. It is not a conventional film, but instead it is ambitious: a mixture of conventional narrative and surrealist cinema, one where the beauty of the film does not solely lie upon the plot, but the way every minute quality of the film ties together to form the tapestry.

The actors all do their parts brilliantly. I am hard-pressed to find any performance that was weak or, for that matter, standard of the Hollywood formula. Hoffman is brilliant in a role that utilizes his physical and acting gifts, and he takes the character through the spectrum of its possibilities. All the other actors also performed brilliantly, although what struck me as wonderful about the acting choices are that the majority of the actors present are not "glamorized" for the screen. Rather, the blemishes, the age, and the imperfections that make them ordinary are ever present in the film, making Synecdoche, New York seem beautiful in a strange, "dirty" way. Much like a city, its majesty lies not in grungy street corners or clogged rain gutters, but in the whole image that is comprised of such small, necessary imperfections.

And that, ultimately, is why Synecdoche, New York is such an ambitious, beautiful film. It is not a perfectly crafted standard screenplay, nor a perfectly executed piece of cinema. At least, Kaufman's work is not perfect under the current criteria of modern cinema. Synecdoche, New York is a gamble; a mixture of images and music and dialogue and acting that follows Kaufman's heart and his meditations on several ideas: namely, those on life and death and the connections all around us. It is dark yet funny, evocative and haunting. It is perfect in being a work of art that tempts us to find explanation, yet ultimately needs none compared to the feelings they evoke in us.

Viewers who are looking to see the difference between "art" and "entertainment" need only see Synecdoche.