Charlie Kaufman 's script is peculiarly conceived, full of unfettered fantasy and absurd characters, and the plot development is also unpredictable, naturally gaining the reputation of a ghost writer. As early as 1999, he became famous with his unbelievable "Puppet Life" . After entering the millennium, he successively created "Human Nature", "Adapted Screenplay", "Eternal Sunshine of a Beautiful Mind" and other scripts, which became popular. Spike Jones and Michel Gondri are two directors who started out as filming MVs. It wasn't until 2008 that Kaufman directed his debut novel "The Synonymy of New York". Unexpectedly, it took 12 years before he directed the live-action film again, that is, this year's work "I Want to End It All" .
Despite being back in the arena after many years, Kaufman still does not play the cards according to common sense, and weaves a super weird plot in the seemingly simple emotional story of men and women, and the brain burn is almost as good as Nolan's "Creed" during the same period. The interpretation of divergent opinions seems to be the highest treatment for this marvelous work, catching clues from the details and putting together a complete plot to become a moment of ecstasy for movie fans. For viewers who have read the original novel, this is no different from a wonderful experience, and for most viewers, it is the most important thing to read Kaufman’s new work unpreparedly. True natural reaction .
Kaufman boldly transformed the protagonist’s psychological projection into a young couple who drove to the protagonist’s home and chatted on the road. All the dialogue and inner thoughts of the two came out of the protagonist’s thoughts and consciousness before his death. This stream of consciousness narrative makes the work present a mysterious and ethereal look and feel, with illogical plots and surreal scenes coming one after another, the heroine’s name (or even the face) is constantly changing, and the appearance and age of the boyfriend’s house are constantly changing. This episode of the parents is the most eye-catching.
However, in my opinion, this kind of stream-of-consciousness narrative method of constantly changing personal perspectives seems to be more suitable for literary works , because the transformation of narrative person in literary works is often easy, after all, it is just words. In movies, this change of narrative views often depends on images, either in memories or similar characters. In this work, this operation is obviously unsatisfactory. Although the clues of the old school workers appeared at the beginning of the film, they were hidden during most of the narrative process. The narrative strategy is quite risky.
The audience has spent three-quarters of their time empathizing with the male and female protagonists. After the final secret is revealed, the audience must quickly adjust their existing feelings and transfer this complicated perception from the male and female protagonists to the old man. It is expected that it is difficult for the audience to find the emotional commonality between the two for a while. Although the director later tried to achieve this emotional transition with a dance scene that took place on campus, the performance of this stage play was amazing in Kaufman’s debut "New York Synonymy," the protagonist of that film. He is a drama director. The drama he directed and his life gradually merged into one. However, this technique brings a blunt and abrupt feeling here. The plot of the hero and heroine imagined by the protagonist before does not happily connect with the dance performance in which the protagonist appeared to participate.
In addition, Kaufman obviously failed to grasp the balance between dialogue and video performance. The dialogue between the two protagonists in the car seems boring and monotonous , ranging from physics to poetry to the analysis of Casavetti's famous "Drunk Woman" by film critics. The rich and miscellaneous topics are too ostentatious, and perhaps the director is suspected of carrying private goods. The processing of this part of the conversation in the car basically imitated the literary technique, and seemed to lack some visual expression. In contrast, the passage of the heroine in the actor's parents' home is obviously much more interesting. The parents who keep changing age and appearance, the elegant and strange interior design, etc. all make the hard-to-achieve part of the text brilliantly imaged.
Although this work is not as stunning as the director's debut work "New York Synonymy" 12 years ago, the protagonists of Kaufman's works are invariably possessed of inescapable fate and tragedy. The topic of death has always haunted the thoughts of the protagonist . Whether it is a theater director in New York or an unknown old school worker, they have encountered many beautiful things in their lives, and they have also been favored by love and family affection. But in the end, it ended up in a state of solitude and helplessness. For them, happiness is either a fleeting and rare experience, or a stimulant used to chat and masturbate in endless memories/fantasy. Death and loneliness are their ultimate destination, which is also the eternal theme in Kaufman's work.
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