in October of 2016 i wrecked my car. i was driving to a bonfire and my windshield started to fog up and my defrost broke. i tried to find a safe place to pull over but there was none- i got lost and the roads started to feel unfamiliar. then i felt myself drive off the road and roll upside down. for a moment, i dangled in my seat- my seatbelt being the only thing holding me from the ground. i unbuckled to get down and for a moment my life flashed before my eyes. simply, if i did this wrong, if i shifted my weight maybe this would be the end of my story and the thought terrified me. thankfully, everything went okay and i got out safely, but this leads perfectly to my first experience watching synedoche new york.
i had no car because i totaled it in that accident so my mom would have to drop me off to school anything. my first class didn't start for two hours so i decided to use this time to catch up on movies i had never seen. i went through a whole lot of classics during that time. paris texas, the green mile, evil dead 2, umbrellas of cherbourg, a clockwork orange- and i could go on. one movie i decided to watch before class was synecdoche new york. i was excited because eternal sunshine of the spotless mind is one of my favorite movies and this was written by the same guy- charlie kauffman. i watched the film and i loathed it. it made so so uneasy and i found it to be very indulgent and a waste of time. since then i've always told people that i started to appreciate this film more older i got.
after falling in love with i'm thinking of ending things- i decided to give this another watch and in the span of my life i'm in right now- this really impacted me. i just laid in bed for a while and looked up at my ceiling in awe.
i felt the same uneasiness i did the first time i watched the film- but i found a whole new love for the experience as a whole. i found myself being profoundly moved by the film and i was wondering what exactly in my life has changed to make me love this film so much now. i think maybe in that time of my life in high school- i was more content with where i was at as a human being. approaching my senior year of college i find myself getting sudden bursts of anxiety because i believe im not doing enough and i'll be forgotten. i'll get a flashback to hanging upside down in my car four years ago and wonder how much more i've accomplished in my life since then and it makes me sad to think not as much as i've wanted to.
i know i'm too harsh on myself. i'm only 22 years old and on the right track. yet, i'm afraid that right now- when i'm young i'm not living enough. yet, any chance i get the chance to live a little i get scared. this is because i sometimes loath the way i look and sound to other people. i want to sound smarter then i do. i want to be more interesting then i am. i have this horrible thought that maybe i'm just basic. i like to imagine my life's story like a scope of the film. i want to correct people on the way they walk or speak. i think- maybe they should do it a different way. the idea of making a production of your life with the same scale is just sprawling- but at the end of the day would that play even really matter?
i think this film is the opposite side of the coin of its a wonderful life. in its a wonderful life- george baily finds self fulfillment in the fact that he touched the lives of so many people- even if he wasn't able to accomplish all he set out to do. in this film, caden accomplishes everything he sets out to do from the start of the film- but still wonders of any of it meant anything. i think it truly did and hopefully in those last few seconds he understood that as well.
