Synecdoche, You're So Fine, You're So Fine You Blow My Mind*

It was an absolutely scorching and beautiful day in London town today, so I did the only good, correct and sane thing to do: went and hung around the bobos and the fed-up film freaks at the Curzon Soho to watch Synecdoche New York.

I had been assured by two entirely separate and very different people that it would blow my brain right out of my earholes, which is always a poisoned chalice, as you can't help but sit in the cinema and think "Right! Mind about to be blown! OK! It's starting! WOW! That's amazi...no...wait, that's just the THX jingle... OK! Now mind about to be blown!" And you're so busy waiting for the mind-blowing to happen, you don't really watch it properly. Or in my case, watch too damn hard, as person no.2 had said that it was a multi-layered treat and every scene was packed with clever foreshadowing, so I spent the first half hour memorising every tiny detail in the background like it was the Krypton Factor observation round, and ignoring the actual dialogue, plot etc. Unfortunately, I got bored of doing that just before the really key thing that would have made the rest of the film make a lot more sense, missing it completely. Only when I came home and read all the reviews to see what I should have thought about the film did I realise my mistake. Damn it.

Anyway, it was bold and confusing and funny and droll and bleak and depressing, but it really was a bit of a mess. I love all of Charlie Kaufman's other stuff - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of my all-time favourite films - but it does seem that he needs a mediating and controlling influence on his sprawling vision. It's too long and does drag in places, and there are a few too many little self-indulgent directorial tics for my liking. So what's it about? The endless unrequited longing of life, the inevitability of death, the arrogance of thinking we are all main players in our own insignificant performance piece... I think that's why I didn't really chime with the film as much as I have with his others. I couldn't really put myself in the main character's shoes, and I think to fully appreciate the film you have to. I'm not overly hassled by my own mortality, as secretly inside I still think I'm young and vibrant, despite evidence to the contrary. And instead of feeling that I have to observe my own life from the outside and reflect myself in others to make sense of it all, I tend towards self-consciousness in the extreme, and feel I'm trapped inside a movie of my own life that nobody's watching. Perhaps that's why I write this blog - to feel like I'm at least upping my own box office slightly. Which is arrogant in a whole other, stupid, self-pitying way, Narcissus staring at himself, getting all miserable because the lake's not teeming with people cooing with admiration at his reflection.

So basically, what I'm saying is I've come out of Synecdoche New York really, really wanting to appear on Big Brother, which I'm pretty sure is what Charlie Kaufman was pitching for.

And of course the most awesome thing about it was it included a gag based on this little peach:



I just love the thought of Kaufman getting script ideas from sticking "TV news bloopers" into YouTube. (Which, incidentally, is a whole afternoon of face-scrunching hysteria in itself).

*and yes, I did send this blog title as a tweet. Hey, give me a break. Brevity is not my strong point and when I achieve it I need to re-damn-cycle.

That's Me In The Corner. Shove Up A Bit, Andrew Collins

Right, enough of all this twatting about with swine flu, and G20, and Bovril, or whatever the hell it is I have been wittering around. Less wittertainment, more witoredom? Doesn't really work. Maybe wittedium? No! I am getting distracted once again, you beastly fiends! It's all your fault! No. No, I don't mean that. How can I stay angry with you? I love you. Hold me.

OK, you can all stop shuddering now. Let's get on with it. Religion! Religion, religion, religion. So I saw a film this week which was possibly the most offensive thing that has ever been shown on British television, and it sneaked up on me totally unawares as it was nestling comfortably between the adverts for denture toothpaste and walk-in baths and lothario cheetahs in the "There there, dear, did the news scare you? Here, reminisce about the old times until Countdown comes on, though mind you, I don't think much of those new people, too smutty by half" matinee slot on Channel 4. Why so offensive? It was nothing more than a typically dull '50s effort but was so horrifically pro-Christian it made my blood boil. How very intolerant of me.

So anyway, it got me thinking, and once the government had been informed, the proper containment procedures were put in place, and the utter destruction caused by the sudden seismic movement of a brain that has not erupted for billions of years was hushed up in a labyrinthine conspiracy that makes Watergate look like Watership Down, it was time to write thoughts down on internet paper.

My first thought: being religious is slightly like being in a horribly passive-aggressive relationship with a partner who is continually giving you the silent treatment. Being a stupid bloody girl, put me in a room with the young man and subject me to mere milliseconds of silence and I will go through a massive internal dialogue thusly: "Why is he not talking to me? What have I done? Oh God, I've done something, it must be something terrible! I am full of guilt and shame! But hang on, that thing that I've done was totally not my fault. I was a victim of circumstance. How dare he dangle that above me like a sword of Damocles! He doesn't understand me at all. What an arse. We should not be together. No, no, what am I saying? I love him. I could never leave him lest I will truly DIE." At which point, I will hug the living hell out of him, startling him out of his male reverie, and prompting something usually akin to "What?!" And everything returns to normal. And the young man is the most laid-back geezer ever to breeze through London town. God only knows what I'd be like with someone who actually ever got angry about anything.

Point being, that seems to be the central premise to having faith. A continual process of second-guessing someone who you're sure is good for you in the long run but is always silently standing over you with one eyebrow raised. If you believe that someone ethereal and God-like is there to guide you through your life, and leaving aside for the moment the utter lunacy of taking instructions from a voice inside your head believing it's beamed in from elsewhere, then whenever you hit upon a bad patch, the only explanation can be that your precious God is testing your faith. So you get angry, and you rail against him and scream "How dare you, Lord! After all the dedication I have given you!" Ah, but then you realise the path to true salvation is lined with patience, and this is all part of God's mission for you in your life, and the power of prayer is the salve of any wound. So you pray (again - ahem - talk to yourself) and hey presto, the bad patch resolves itself in, coincidentally, exactly the same way it would if you hadn't spent the entire time ranting and snivelling at nothing and no-one.

It must be truly exhausting. I have no idea why any sane person would bother.

I have plenty more points to elucidate upon, like a veritable craphorse Hitchens, but I may have to save them for another time. A magpie just briefly landed on my windowsill, and I didn't salute it. So now I have to go out and find another one, and shoot it.