Friday, May 29, 2009

We just saw the *best* movie

First things first: my CT scan came back clear (or unremarkable) with no new mets and no changes in the existing spots, which means that I'm still stable. Yay!

We watched the most amazing, thought-provoking movie tonight: Synecdoche, New York. The story is about a theatre producer's life and his life's work, where he builds a replica of New York in an abandoned warehouse.

The movie is funny, poignant, and surreal... by the end, it's hard to know who is who and what is what. Everything hinges on the title, specifically, synecdoche, which can mean either something that refers to a part of that thing, or a part of a thing that refers to the whole of the thing. So there are layers upon layers upon layers in the movie (even for the characters!).

This isn't the kind of movie you can start and then walk away from; almost *everything* has meaning, one way or another. If you're going to watch this movie, then commit to watching it all the way through, pausing it if you have to leave the room or are otherwise distracted. It is a masterpiece of a movie, but it is also a movie that requires a lot of attention and can be difficult to watch. This is part of this movie's greatness.

We watched the movie with a few other people and we spent some time afterward trying to figure out what the whole movie was about and also some of the imagery. It's a wonderful film and one that I'll definitely see again (in part to see if I can understand the motifs and metaphors this time... I think this is a movie that needs to be seen twice). I highly recommend it.

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