City of Women vs Synecdoche, New York

City of Women

One strange scene leads to the next by feeling, not by plot. The roller-skating escape, the mansion and the trial all follow a dreamer's logic.

Synecdoche, New York

As the film goes on, the warehouse production grows to take in the city. Actors hire actors to play themselves, and the line between play and life dissolves entirely. The final act runs on pure dream logic. Decades shrink into moments. Caden switches between directing his own production and living inside it, and cause and effect swap places.

City of Women

The mansion of Dr. Katzone has walls covered in photographs of his sexual conquests. The set shows the host's vanity in one glance.

Synecdoche, New York

The warehouse theater grows to contain a full replica of New York. Then it holds a replica of the warehouse itself, with the replica inside it. It is the film's central psychological achievement. The set is Caden's attempt to make his inner life literal. It is a space that contains everything he has ever lost, which is to say everything.

City of Women

The film begins on a train and ends back there. The return tells you the whole adventure may have been in Snaporaz's head.

Synecdoche, New York

The film begins with a man waking up and ends with a man being told to die. Exhaustion is what closes the circle, and there is no triumph in it. The theater project ends as the life ends. The final stage direction is 'Die'. It reveals that Caden spent every year of the production rehearsing this last instruction.