Burn Before Filming

In Anthony Lane's pan of Synecdoche, New York we get this parenthetical comment:

The best gag in the film is that Hazel’s home is forever on fire; she lives there quite cheerfully, never explaining the flames, and barely noticing them. Buñuel would be proud of her.

I think the burning house is a good bit by itself, but does't work in the film. The story was already so filled with surrealistic touches, that to have yet another, seemingly separate from everything else, was a touch too far.