Must See Movies: "Synecdoche, New York" and "Let The Right One In"

I've been a bit down on 2008 as a year for quality film. Obviously, I loved "The Dark Knight" like it's my first child, and "Wall-E" holds a special place in my heart, despite its flaws. "Pineapple Express" will go down as one of the great cult stoner comedies, and might be the most enjoyable flick to come out of the Apatow laugh factory so far, while "In Bruges" was a small first feature with killer performances (that is not by any means a crappy "Pulp Fiction" ripoff that should have come out in the mid nineties, as the trailers seem to imply.) But the great movies have been few and far between in 2008 (a year I have personal issues with for other reasons, but we won't get into that here) and I've lately bemoaned the lack of good "indie" flicks and began to lose hope that I'd genuinely love enough movies this year to fill out an earnest top ten list before 2009 rolls around.
But this weekend turned out to be a pleasant surprise for adventurous film lovers everywhere, with two of the most unique films of the year from artists with very strong voices and points of view came out this weekend, restoring my ever renewable excitement for the medium all over again.

"Let The Right One In"

A shivery yet sweet adolescent vampire romance, "Let the Right One In" tells the unique tale of a lonely, picked upon Swedish boy who falls in love with the new girl in town... who just happens to drink blood and have an aversion to the daylight. This movie is haunting, mysterious, earnest and deeply felt while not ever sacrificing the chills and gore that make for a great fright flick. The whole thing is just gorgeously crafted by Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson, who displays consummate control of his craft in telling this strange and strangely moving little fairy tale. It's also really darkly funny in a lot of ways. A must see for anyone who loves horror flicks. Check it out before its ruined by the planned American remake (which is set to be directed by Matt Reeves, who helmed "Cloverfield," which I liked quite a bit, but still.)

"Synecdoche, New York."

A lovely, confounding, sad, funny, epic, dense, self indulgent, messy, ambitious, heartbreaking, honest, and deeply personal directorial debut from Charlie Kaufman, the singular artist behind the screenplays for (in order of increasing genius,) "Being John Malkovich," "Adaptation," and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." "Synecdoche" tells the story of a self loathing playwright (is there any other kind?) played by (probably the best actor working today) Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is dumped by his aritst wife (Catherine Keener, at her sharpest and most bitterly sarcastic,) and wins a "genius grant" that starts him on an obsessive quest to create a massive theater piece that obsessively recreates his life to the very smallest details. Eventually, the play has grown to include plays within plays within plays, and cities within cities within cities, and lives within lives within lives, and so on and on and on in a self reflexive maze that becomes dizzying to unravel. Kaufman bares his soul and puts all his pet obsessions and themes- artistic and personal identity, fear of death, narrative puzzles, the meaning of life, romantic failure, and many more-- on the line with this hugely ambitious film. One of the most amazing things about the "Synecdoche" is that it's the work of a fist time director... with a relatively small $20 million budget, Kaufman impresses with his confident work with the camera and (more importantly) with the great cast of actors he has assembled (this movie has a huge group of great parts for some of the best film actresses working today, including Keener, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton, Emily Watson, Hope Davis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and the always wonderful and under appreciated Dianne Wiest, who is brilliant and heartbreaking here.) The movie's hero sometimes gets lost in his own wanderings, but the film really doesn't... it may sometimes feel like it's a bit offtrack, but I'm pretty sure Kaufman knew exactly where he was going with every little scene and choice, no matter how strange or disconnected it may seem on first viewing. This is a challenging yet engrossing film that's been knocking around in my head since I first saw it, and it's ultimately about something really simple and real. I'll let the more eloquent film critic Manohla Dargis of The New York Times express it better than I could have with this quote:
Despite its slippery way with time and space and narrative and Mr. Kaufman’s controlled grasp of the medium, “Synecdoche, New York” is as much a cry from the heart as it is an assertion of creative consciousness. It’s extravagantly conceptual but also tethered to the here and now, which is why, for all its flights of fancy, worlds within worlds and agonies upon agonies, it comes down hard for living in the world with real, breathing, embracing bodies pressed against other bodies. To be here now, alive in the world as it is rather than as we imagine it to be, seems a terribly simple idea, yet it’s also the only idea worth the fuss, the anxiety of influence and all the messy rest, a lesson hard won for Caden. Life is a dream, but only for sleepers.
"Synecdoche, New York" may be a little too self indulgent at times, it may go down a few plot dead ends that seem unsatisfying at first, it may not make perfect sense no matter how much you think about all the ideas in Kaufman's breathtaking directorial debut... but like the work of Fellinni, Allen, Lynch, and other major film artists that Kaufman is clearly influenced by with "Synecdoche, New York," it's true in a way that easier to digest movies Hollywood movies aren't. See it, then see it with me when I go to see it again.
It's also probably a pretty cool movie to watch while stoned.