An anology without the analogue

Ambiguity: When the credit rolled I felt very, very ambivalent, and certainly at a loss for words, half from shell shock half from weariness. It's surely a long movie given its density. The last half an hour was packed with one definitive moment after another, where I said to myself, “finally…” and got ready for the nearest exist. But it just went on and on and on. I'm not necessarily saying these definitive moments weren't good, there were simply too many of Neither my brain nor my bladder could take such rapid foray of revelations on the topics of living or dying. As my mind started to wander, I can't decide whether this taxing series of never-ending finales is Kuaffman simply not knowing he's overstaying his welcome, or actually a brilliant new technique. I mean, Caden surely looked very very tired toward the end of his life,what is a better way to deliver that sense of weariness to the audience than dragging them along through this seemly endless march towards decadence and death. In the beginning of the film, Caden's wife confessed that she sometimes fantasized about Caden's death and it made her happy . Towards the end, every person in the audience was fantasizing the same. You just can't be sure if that effect was intended. Same uncertainty persisted through the film. Every now and then Caden would launch a rant about loneliness or fear of death or other random all-too-obvious lamentation that made you roll your eyeballs. They were all sentimental cliché but Hoffman delivered them in such a solemn tone. You can't be sure whether Kauffman is mocking his character for lacking of creativity, or is really tripping and falling into mediocrity himself.Caden's wife confessed that she sometimes fantasized about Caden's death and it made her happy. Towards the end, every person in the audience was fantasizing the same. You just can't be sure if that effect was intended. Same uncertainty persisted through the film. Every now and then Caden would launch a rant about loneliness or fear of death or other random all-too-obvious lamentation that made you roll your eyeballs. They were all sentimental cliché but Hoffman delivered them in such a solemn tone. You can't be sure whether Kauffman is mocking his character for lacking of creativity, or is really tripping and falling into mediocrity himself.Caden's wife confessed that she sometimes fantasized about Caden's death and it made her happy. Towards the end, every person in the audience was fantasizing the same. You just can't be sure if that effect was intended. Same uncertainty persisted through the film. Every now and then Caden would launch a rant about loneliness or fear of death or other random all-too-obvious lamentation that made you roll your eyeballs. They were all sentimental cliché but Hoffman delivered them in such a solemn tone. You can't be sure whether Kauffman is mocking his character for lacking of creativity, or is really tripping and falling into mediocrity himself.Same uncertainty persisted through the film. Every now and then Caden would launch a rant about loneliness or fear of death or other random all-too-obvious lamentation that made you roll your eyeballs. They were all sentimental cliché but Hoffman delivered them in such a solemn tone. You can't be sure whether Kauffman is mocking his character for lacking of creativity, or is really tripping and falling into mediocrity himself.Same uncertainty persisted through the film. Every now and then Caden would launch a rant about loneliness or fear of death or other random all-too-obvious lamentation that made you roll your eyeballs. They were all sentimental cliché but Hoffman delivered them in such a solemn tone. You can't be sure whether Kauffman is mocking his character for lacking of creativity, or is really tripping and falling into mediocrity himself.

Ambition: all in all a failed one, i'd say. This film touched on so many aspects of the post-modern existential anxiety: loneliness, mortality, identity, insignificance and meaninglessness of being, you name it. I feel if I have the time and the will, I can probably identify in this movie the ghost of every modern literature work I've ever read. But this is really where the ambivalent feelings came from. It has been said that reading a good book (or watching a good movie for that matter) is like engaging an imaginary conversation with the author. But here it's like multiple voices were talking, simultaneously and incessantly, all with the same desolated and monotonous tone, very soon it became impossible to tell one from another. And none of the hundreds of topics raised was explored in any meaningful depth.It's like a typical law school issue-spotting exam, you get points for simply identifying and mentioning the issues in passing reference, no need to bother with discussion if you don't care for the extra credits. There are just too many trains of thoughts , all too involved in following their own sub-current threads to care about engaging the audience. Towards the end a character exclaimed, “Fuck everyone!” To a certain degree, that's exactly what this movie was trying to say." To a certain degree, that's exactly what this movie was trying to say." To a certain degree, that's exactly what this movie was trying to say.

Amorphousness: Half way through the movie it dawned on me maybe the old “Being John Malkovich” trick was hard at work here, although stealthily. The story proceeded along Caden's life in a somewhat linear fashion, but not at an even pace. The first one third of the movie was pretty normal in terms of story-telling, then things got wacky from there. Sometimes time would leap 4 or 5 years ahead between one scene and the next, with a pass reference at best, then it would come to a full stop, allowing every single detail of that particular moment to be painstakingly grinded out. Then time would leap forward again without the slightest hint. As a result the sense of time and relevance was all jumbled. Taken as a whole, the movie is a silent manifestation of the decadence (or evolution you might say) from a banal, ordered life into total chaos.If you watched the first 30 mins of the movie, fell asleep (I suspect many did) and then woke up to see the last 30 mins, you can't fail to notice the drastic contrast in tone, the all too realistic suffocating depression in the beginning and trademark surrealistic alternative existence and assumed identity in the end. The trick here is that the morphosis took place at an unnoticeable pace and in a matter-of-fact way. Looking back, you pondered how you end up getting here and realized that the surrealism in the end was not that improbable after all. It's like slowly peeling off existence, layer by layer, from the outer appearance of sensibility to the core of absurdity. When you sneer at the absurdity you are really laughing at yourself. Not exactly a ground-breaking technique but on a whole adequately done.fell asleep (I suspect many did) and then woke up to see the last 30 mins, you can't fail to notice the drastic contrast in tone, the all too realistic suffocating depression in the beginning and trademark surrealistic alternative existence and assumed identity in the end. The trick here is that the morphosis took place at an unnoticeable pace and in a matter-of-fact way. Looking back, you pondered how you end up getting here and realized that the surrealism in the end was not that improbable after all. It's like slowly peeling off existence, layer by layer, from the outer appearance of sensibility to the core of absurdity. When you sneer at the absurdity you are really laughing at yourself. Not exactly a ground-breaking technique but on a whole adequately done.fell asleep (I suspect many did) and then woke up to see the last 30 mins, you can't fail to notice the drastic contrast in tone, the all too realistic suffocating depression in the beginning and trademark surrealistic alternative existence and assumed identity in the end. The trick here is that the morphosis took place at an unnoticeable pace and in a matter-of-fact way. Looking back, you pondered how you end up getting here and realized that the surrealism in the end was not that improbable after all. It's like slowly peeling off existence, layer by layer, from the outer appearance of sensibility to the core of absurdity. When you sneer at the absurdity you are really laughing at yourself. Not exactly a ground-breaking technique but on a whole adequately done.you can't fail to notice the drastic contrast in tone, the all too realistic suffocating depression in the beginning and trademark surrealistic alternative existence and assumed identity in the end. The trick here is that the morphosis took place at an unnoticeable pace and in a matter-of-fact way. Looking back, you pondered how you end up getting here and realized that the surrealism in the end was not that improbable after all. It's like slowly peeling off existence, layer by layer, from the outer appearance of sensibility to the core of absurdity. When you sneer at the absurdity you are really laughing at yourself. Not exactly a ground-breaking technique but on a whole adequately done.you can't fail to notice the drastic contrast in tone, the all too realistic suffocating depression in the beginning and trademark surrealistic alternative existence and assumed identity in the end. The trick here is that the morphosis took place at an unnoticeable pace and in a matter-of-fact way. Looking back, you pondered how you end up getting here and realized that the surrealism in the end was not that improbable after all. It's like slowly peeling off existence, layer by layer, from the outer appearance of sensibility to the core of absurdity. When you sneer at the absurdity you are really laughing at yourself. Not exactly a ground-breaking technique but on a whole adequately done.the all too realistic suffocating depression in the beginning and trademark surrealistic alternative existence and assumed identity in the end. The trick here is that the morphosis took place at an unnoticeable pace and in a matter-of-fact way. Looking back, you pondered how you end up getting here and realized that the surrealism in the end was not that improbable after all. It's like slowly peeling off existence, layer by layer, from the outer appearance of sensibility to the core of absurdity. When you sneer at the absurdity you are really laughing at yourself. Not exactly a ground-breaking technique but on a whole adequately done.the all too realistic suffocating depression in the beginning and trademark surrealistic alternative existence and assumed identity in the end. The trick here is that the morphosis took place at an unnoticeable pace and in a matter-of-fact way. Looking back, you pondered how you end up getting here and realized that the surrealism in the end was not that improbable after all. It's like slowly peeling off existence, layer by layer, from the outer appearance of sensibility to the core of absurdity. When you sneer at the absurdity you are really laughing at yourself. Not exactly a ground-breaking technique but on a whole adequately done.you pondered how you end up getting here and realized that the surrealism in the end was not that improbable after all. It's like slowly peeling off existence, layer by layer, from the outer appearance of sensibility to the core of absurdity. When you sneer at the absurdity you are really laughing at yourself. Not exactly a ground-breaking technique but on a whole adequately done.you pondered how you end up getting here and realized that the surrealism in the end was not that improbable after all. It's like slowly peeling off existence, layer by layer, from the outer appearance of sensibility to the core of absurdity. When you sneer at the absurdity you are really laughing at yourself. Not exactly a ground-breaking technique but on a whole adequately done.

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