Synecdoche, New York Blu-ray

Synecdoche, New York

 (2008)

Comedy | Drama



From the writer of Adaptation, Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is mounting a new play. His life catering to suburban blue-hairs at the local regional theater in Schenectady, New York is looking bleak. His wife Adele (Catherine Keener) has left him to pursue her painting in Berlin, taking their young daughter Olive with her. Worried about the transience of his life, he leaves his home behind. He gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in New York City, hoping to create a work of brutal honesty. He directs them in a celebration of the mundane, instructing each to live out their constructed lives in a growing mockup of the city outside. The years rapidly fold into each other, and Caden buries himself deeper into his masterpiece, but the textured tangle of real and theatrical relationships blurs the line between the world of the play and that of Caden's town deteriorating reality.

For more details about Synecdoche, New York on Blu-ray, see the Synecdoche, New York Blu-ray Review

Synecdoche, New York Blu-ray, Video Quality

 

I expected Synecdoche, New York to be a drab and colorless affair, but I didn't expect its 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer to be so indicative of the film's ambiguous tone and direction. Despite some consistency issues, the palette is surprisingly warm, skintones are natural, and blacks are well resolved. Contrast is attractive throughout as well, giving the Blu-ray image considerably more depth and dimensionality than its standard DVD counterpart. Detail may disappoint some viewers -- a variety of shots are downright soft, textures aren't as refined as I had hoped they would be, and shadow delineation is often overly oppressive -- but I got the distinct impression that Kaufman didn't want his opus to look any other way. While it still looks much better than the DVD, it certainly isn't as sharp as other Sony releases. Don't get me wrong: I could overlook shortcomings derived from the director's intentions, but the disc also struggles with some technical issues. Black crush is a frequent problem, minor artifacting splinters portions of the image on a handful of occasions, and source noise appears in several darker sequences. Still, Synecdoche, New York looks pretty good. It may not boast the wow-factor of other recent titles, but it gets the job done.

Synecdoche, New York Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 

Synecdoche, New York is an unsettling study of silence and atmosphere just as much as it is an exploration of Caden's disjointed mind. As such, Sony's Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround track delivers a subdued soundscape that probably won't impress anyone but the most hardened audiophiles. Dialogue is thankfully pitch perfect, remaining strong and stable even when the characters' voices fail them. Precise prioritization ensures lines are never lost in the mix or overwhelmed by any other elements of the soundscape. LFE support is minimal at best, but pipes up whenever called upon. Likewise, the rear speakers are largely relegated to faint ambience, but enhance the acoustic properties of each interior space. Ah well, at least its pans are smooth and directionality (what little there is of it) is spot on. Ultimately, while the overall soundfield is relatively immersive considering the nature of Kaufman's tale, the front-heavy sound design hinders the experience and leaves the disc's video transfer to shoulder most of the AV burden.

Synecdoche, New York Blu-ray, News and Updates

• Synecdoche, New York Announced for Blu-ray - December 29, 2008

Synecdoche, New York Blu-ray, Forum Discussions

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