The Kaufman Hell - I'm Thinking of Ending Things

Its what twin peaks should've been - I dont want to ever know what it really means

😎🙏💯

The book and the movie compliment each other. The book was filled with dread and the movie filled with sadness. I recommend reading it and then watching the movie.

See I want to watch this movie, as existential psychological horror is right up my alley, but at the same time... As a clinically depressed, lonely maladaptive daydreamer I think I might be better off skipping it. Still not sure. This is the only movie I can't really bring myself to watch.

When I first saw this movie, I had no idea what was going on. However, when I looked at it with understanding, I realized that there was an unpleasant dull pain and a faint feeling of comfort, as if I had pressed my finger on a bruise. Now I watch it every night before I go to bed.

I never read the book. Was so intrigued by the trailer. Looked bat shit crazy, and I was so excited to see it. Then sat down to watch the movie and couldn’t finish the whole thing. I felt like I was tricked. It was not for me. I was bored out of my mind.

"... are parasitic entities that intrude the mind of their true owner ..."
"... simminering thoughts of reality placed in a pot of consciousness , an aromatic broth ... "

this is when i stopped watching the video
the level of pretentiousness on these high school essays are getting outta hand

Hearing idiots try to analyze this in the comments saying "I'm glad it was surreal to soften the existential blows" or "it's good but I'm never watching it again" honestly makes me lose hope for humanity as depicted in the film. These idiots are the dancing tiktok fame seekers of the day, minds rendered so shallow by the hollowed out meaninglessness of quick dopamine media. These are the idiots inheriting the world who will lead others to waddling their way to Idiocracy. They've made it so painfully sad.

I’m not always one to enjoy more artsy films like this, but Kaufman is the one exception, he just makes his films so engrossing and I can never look away or stop thinking about them after.

In the book he is seems to be dead already!

Loved this film

i thought that it was funny how lucy’s rigntone also sounded like school bells!

love your work spikima, love your narration and voice, love your films selections, when im bored, i check your videos and watch the films you cover only to see then your analysis, i discovered a lot of all time favs films thanks to you, love kauffman works btw. ty have a nice day and wish you the best<3

What a amazing movie!!!!

I always love movies where a fat naked old dude commits suicide in a van in the freezing cold.

bit cheap to ascribe this all to Kaufman, when it's almost all right there on the page in Iain Reid's original novel

this is a masterpiece critic

There is a possibility that he is, in reality, dying (or possibly even dead, physically speaking) and that death is the passive option rather than the active one. So rather than her being the part of him actively wanting to die, he is the part of him stubbornly clinging to life and needing to resolve the conflicts and assess his existence before he is prepared to move on. Bear in mind if the janitor is the most recent interation of Jake then Jake in reality is quite old and probably nearing the end of his life. So rather than Lucy being the paet of him thinking of killing himself she is simply the part of him ready to accept dying. Even though she is the one "thinking of ending things" he is the one full of regrets, almost as if "I am not prepared to leave this life whilst it all still meant nothing; let it at least mean something before it is over."

The idea of the film is very good but the execution is so tedious and irritating.

Is everyone who read the book going to ignore how absolute crap this movie was?? It ruined the books merits and hid it's incompetence behind an "artsy" veil.

boring

Watching this movie affected my life. It brought me and my gf at the time so down that we straight up couldn’t avoid talking about our relationship and life. I could write an entire book on how this movie just perfectly kick started one of the worst times of my life lmao

This movie was just tension building with no release. For me it was confusing for confusing sake. It was irritating for me and just made me anxious. My partner was excited to watch this because she just read the book, but was pretty disappointed.

I wasn’t a fan of this movie. Unfortunately, because I love love loved Eternal Sunshine. It just felt like I had to have read the book and watched Oklahoma (at least… so many other references as well), to really understand what was going on. And I’m a huge fan of complicated/artsy/more-than-meets-the-eye movies in general! I love debriefing and watching/reading reviews afterwards to see how other people interpreted the movie, things I missed etc. But after watching this movie I still had no idea what it was about. It was so long too— I felt like I wasn’t able to give it my full attention and critical thinking skills for the entire runtime, which was definitely necessary in trying to decipher it. But who knows, maybe if I watched it again in the future it would hit different 🤷‍♀️

I thought he was schizophrenic!

I'll never forget the intense feeling I got when she broke the fourth wall, I was already entranced just by the poetry and her looking directly just made me so vulnerable sending chills to my spine. I wish I could go back to that day, randomly scrolling through Netflix seeing the interesting title, and just watching it blindly.

This is what my dreams looks like nowadays

The idea that Jake and the woman, these deeply thoughtful and nuanced people, were reflections of the janitor's soul that others could never see is honestly so crushing to me. Recognizing that every single person around you, especially those forgotten by society, have such beautiful and deep inner worlds is an idea that really overwhelms me sometimes.

One of the best movies I've seen in my entire life. The fear of the end, the fear of ending things, the fear of a lost or wasted life, the fear of loneliness, the fear of heartbreak, the fear of loss, the fear of disappointment, the fear to be alone, the fear of dying alone, the fear of coming home and that this is something terrible, as the poem "Bonedog" says so well. That's the key to the movie. In that poem. "Bonedog". Beautiful poem, but also extremely nihilistic and pessimistic, and fatalistic. But beautiful anyway. A film that invites you to think on various things, from a quite existentialist and profound point of view, at times also philosophical, and sometimes quite nihilistic, or sad or tragic. One of those movies that stays with you and becomes part of you. In my opinion, one of the best movies I've seen, among some others. I take it to eternity. And yes, as you said at the end of the video, along with that scene from the movie that is beautiful, this movie is going to leave you thinking about many things, but also about the endings of things. And everything that has a beginning has an end. We must never forget the mortality of things. A movie that is much more than just a movie. Something unique, beautiful, sensitive, poetic, and existentialist. Something necessary and fundamental I would say. Thanks for the analysis.

Interesting aspect ratio choice

Having struggled with mental illness my entire life I find that a movie like this isn't art, This is just mental masochism for pseudo intellectuals to talk about it the next party. There are people that deal with real problems like trying to make it to the next day, but for people who are into this artistic masturbation, it's simply interesting.

I was 15 when I watched this movie, maybe too young, it left me feeling uneasy for days. Maybe I will watch it again when I'm older

I dont fond thousands i found yours

I saw film first then read book!And the beauty of the film is it doesn't wrap up the ending in a bow.The book is too on the nose.

Love your choice of naming her by all her different names in turn like the movie does.

You never mentioned it, and I can't remember if it's brought up in the film, but the 'Lucy' character in the book is a girl that Jake met when he was young, and never saw again, even though they got on very well and seemed to have a connection.

This movie was so hard to watch almost like a bad trip, but I feel like the director was trying to get that sense of dread and I can appreciate how it made me feel although i wont ever watch it again lol

This movie was hot garbage.

I loved this movie, but somehow it was also boring throughout

This movie left me not in a heightened state of compassion or empathy for the protagonist, even though of course his story and imagination are tragically sad, but actually and surprisingly angry that the film leaves us with no perspective whatsoever other than that of a person who loathes themselves so much and is so tired of loathing themselves they commit suicide. So many of us already have a warped perception ourselves. Depression is a widespread social contagion.
So, of what moral use is this film? I don’t think films should avoid the darkest reaches of the human experience but this film’s ultimate destination felt so cheap and cruel. The cartoon and the pig were especially horrible — there was no dignity even in his suicide. What the pig said was awful. The older I get the less patience I have for films that do nothing to improve my perception of the world, but just reflect back to us the worst of our collective misery. Maybe someone benefits from staring into this hell, but I struggle to understand why and how.

this movie is really insane. this video explains it so well.

Wow! This is on another level of interpretative thinking. I felt sick after watching it. An outstanding visual representation of the compartments of the mind and the way the internal and external process “life” that constant fucking snow storm was a perfection representation of his life through that time. That snow… it’s everyone’s life.

When I first discovered this movie, it was midnight and I just wanted something to watch to distract myself, and I remember thinking that, as the movie went on, it would continue forever. Like the movie had always been going on, and would continue to go on. It was absolutely horrific, and I loved and hated every minute of it.

This movie proves that everyone has their own anxieties and neurotic thoughts. Whether you're a popular high school jock, or a Gothic social outcast. We're all the main character in our own story and friends, family, strangers, and the entire outside world are merely side characters and to realize that is sad and depressing. We're all in this loop of life that has no meaning other than to simply exist and reproduce so your offspring and the offspring of them do the same exact thing only to be forgotten in time. The famous movie star, the exceptional athlete, the beautiful model, all will be forgotten eventually. The cosmic dread of such a realization is almost unbearable.

..interesting and accurate interpretation.. but, mine (though not "opposing" this one nor making it any less valid) tends to be actually... way more unsettling and creepy.
I do believe this film is less about "our minds" / conscious/subconscious and it's complexity, and rather about the complexity of our minds within this very world.. ideology. In very short, it is about Fiction<->Reality, how they've always interpenetrated each other, and how our necessity to "tell ourselves", "narrate our lives", and eventually fantasizing our lives (the one and only ≠ with other species!), is being brought to an insane level in this system... leading to more and more individualism, narcissism .
All of the discussion they are having in the car are always "highly" nerdy/intellectual, about arts, films... for happy fews actually.. (Worthy to be noted.. they both during the film are alternatively into poetry/litterature, quantim physiscs, psychology, even "quantum psychichs", film theory - ergo : arts & science. at a high level.)
There is a massive contrast to the fact that he ended up working as a janitor in his former high school.. and all these things suddenly disappear as soon as they enter the "nuclear family" realm.
All the socio-political issues are depicted here : city vs rural areas, youth vs aging, intellectuality/a sense of freedom or autonomy/ a carrer vs. family life/ settling/ a "secure haven".., small talk vs. intellectuality/academincs, bourgeoisie vs proletarian And these things are far more of a threat to her, to women, than to men.. though both can be stuck at home.. : him being and obvisouly having remained stuck as a young men never leaving its parents house, her, being stuck to become a housewife, having to abandon all her intellectual or artistic life / endeavors. (note the change of clothes.. the longer she stays at the parents house..).
So, it is also a lot about that pretty modern dilema: settling, "finding love", getting married aka losing freedom by stepping into the codes of the nuclear family, having to(?) abandon all personal growing.. or.. remaining alone, focusing on your career.

The end scene, also, speaks volume about the importance of "social stature", or what it is to "have succeeded" or "failed", in a capitalist society as in also codes of what "happiness & success" "ought" to be, vehiculed a société du spectacle.. (esp the dellusion of the american dream..). And it turns into a grotesque cliché.. something in between the Oscars and a ceremony for the lifework of a groundbreaking scientist...(young bodies looking all old, wearing masks of aging), and him, only talking about love in the end.. in the form of a musical.
How "having a successful love life" is also always connected or even considered depending on having a successful carreer, esp as a man..
Her mentioning guy debord in the car.. : not a gratuitous move here! but rather a direct "message d'auteur", from kaufman himself. Same goes with her mentioning, analyzing but also mimicking yet another movie character, a character playing a character, a movie in a movie, (both in the car AND at the end scene, doing that very distinctive "prrt!" and move of the thumb), and, specifically that of Cassavetes "A Women under the Influence".. As in the story of a person "crumbling apart" psychologically.. or rather, not fitting society/being "unfit" for society and conventions, too sensitive to fit this stif world.. a genre at the total opposite of the spectrum of the musical genre. A film basically asking the question: who's the crazy one in the end? Her ? or society?". (Worthy to note how fast she speaks and washes down her analysis and film-theoretical questioning.. it turns into some pretty vain psuedo intellectual rambling..There's vanity, and she uses it to dominate him..).
So to me, these 2 topics in the car : the société du spectacle, the image as a virus, the word as a lie, the story/fiction becoming the grid to follow for our real lives to be "true" and "truly great", the increasing difficulty to have a society collectively sharing collective dreams as opposed to very personal ones, and the consequenctial crumbling apart of our reality and.. minds.. (neurosis, psychosis), or, in short, our increasing difficulty to connect with one another...in short -> Alienation.. are THE main topic of the film...or at least, shown as being the ROOT causes of all other depicted issues.
It is also about rape...the fear of rape and even murder, being trapped by men (the basement too embodies that fear) : it's a rampant menace in the car, when he forces her to be driven to " a garbage can"/ the school.. and it is metaphorically depicted in the musical/danced scene, where the character of a, older janitor "kidnaps" the newlywed girl.. It is also def. about getting trapped into old school roles and positions in society of women (the scene where she turns into a maid, a housewife, clearing the diner table in a glimpse).. It is alos about men stealing away women's creatins in art (her paintings are being signed "jake" in the basement).. It's very much about patriarchy/phalocracy having fucked us all up.. men included ! proof being.. he ended up poor, old and lonely, with an unexisting intellectual and artistic life, only fed by hollywood movies (zemeckis).. And the super gentle and sensitive also Jake turns rapidly into an authoritarian "family man/patriarch" deciding when to leave or not, where to drive, when to stop.. he's "behind the wheel" at all times.)
Image IS virus, she says. (I coulnd't help but think of W. Burrough's quote "Word begets Imag and Image IS virus"). And those images of what should be a perfect life, love, "happiness" are being planted into our heads through hollywood iconography since about 130 y now.. (note that the army invested a lot of money in hollywood.. ; nlike europe, there's no such thing as ministries of culture and dedicated budgets for art...). But, like in musicals (he, jake, likes and knows by heart), they turn into ideas of how the world should be, our lives should be..: ideologies. Thing is, we cannot, never top nor atteign these images.. they are made to make us feel miserable if we believe in them... and same goes with believeing our own thoughts too much, taking them for granted, frogetting our views actually shape reality... - so, they are eating us up.
_ Ultimately, this film is a story telling us to realize the destructive power of images and stories. The danger of being trapped in prefabricated narratives, overimposing on reality itself. Unless we make our own!

This might be a shitty thing to say. But the fact that there are quite a few people in the comment section who so aggresively distance themselves from this movie, sounds like an alarming sign of unhealthy psychie. These kinda movies are pieces of art that are supposed to be consumed as a medicine telling you about a very real feeling, showing you a perfect example of a harsh reality.

The hidden positive message that are written between the lines is that this is very well a feeling that has been discovered, and if you get hurt by it, and relate, it means you're not alone.

I love the “how can you have a sad image without someone looking sad in the picture?” Contrasted with the final frame of the snow covered truck alone in the school parking lot in the morning. It’s the saddest frame of the film. Without a person in sight.