Jeremiah Zagar’s In a Dream premiered at SXSW in 2008, two months before Synecdoche, NY was unveiled at Cannes, but seen in the run up to its release in New York on Friday, Zagar’s family documentary pops out as a true-life analogue to Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut. Dream’s counterpart to Caden Cotard is Isaiah Zagar, the filmmaker’s father and a mosaic mural artist who, in the film’s earliest frames, confesses to an attraction to the “gigantic.” As In a Dream unfolds (in three parts, detailing Jeremiah’s parents’ courtship and formation of a family life around the patriarch’s art practice, the eventual threats to their way of life and ultimately its tentative rebirth), more Synecdoche similarities emerge. Like the protagonist of Kaufman’s masterwork, Isaiah Zagar deals with the internal by projecting it on the external, making an art work that conquers a city, that blurs the line between public space and domestic, and that never ends. His work becomes an addiction that unwittingly distances him from the people he loves. Both films even feature protagonists who handle their own feces. Oddly enough, it’s the indie documentary, not the studio-released drama with an ensemble full of stars, that points to the possibility of a happy ending.
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AJ Schnack has posted the Academy’s shortlist for the Best Documentary Feature nomination. As expected (at least, by me), Ellen Kuras’ The Betrayal, Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World, Errol Morris’ Standard Operating Procedure, and Sundance winners Man on Wire and Trouble the Wire all made the cut. It’s also nice to see a few smaller films on the list, including In a Dream and They Killed Sister Dorothy. But there are also a few notable omissions, including Religulous and Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, both of which had their semi-secret shortlist qualifying runs at the Creative Entertainment Coliseum Quad on 181 Street in the nosebleed section of New York City. Coincidence?!?? Probably! (For what it’s worth, Expelled, Religulous‘ political polar opposite, also failed to make the cut.)
The full list can be found here. Expect chatter and analysis in the days to come (probably not least from the snubbed Bill Maher).
