Just another day of sun.
If you have encountered me at any point in time during the past week and a half, chances are that I had a hard time shutting up about this really cool movie I saw last Friday. Honestly, I’m not much of a movie goer. I hate theaters: they’re cold, uncomfortable, and they strategically fill the air with the smell of buttery popcorn in order to get you to buy a product that’s overpriced by about 8,000%. So when I rave about a movie, you know that I mean business. In this case, that movie is Damien Chazelle’s ode to the City of Angels, La La Land. I loved this movie so much that I saw it three times in theaters. And I wrote a critical analysis/review because I think that this film gives audiences so much to talk and think about. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, I highly recommend watching it on the big screen before it is released on DVD. The film has so much gorgeous cinematography that a normal TV cannot do it justice. If I can put my distaste for theaters on hold to go see this film, trust me, you can too. I also recommend that you stop reading this article because of spoilers and whatnot.
And now, our feature presentation:
La La Land is probably the most critically acclaimed film of this year. It won in every category it was nominated for at the Golden Globe’s and broke a record with 7 Golden Globe awards. La La Land is now competing with the classics at the upcoming Academy Award’s ceremony. The film has been nominated for a record-tying 14 Academy Awards, one of only three films that have ever achieved such a feat. The other two films that have received 14 nominations are Titanic (1997) and All About Eve (1950). If La La Land wins 10 of the 14 Academy Award nominations, it will be the first film in Hollywood history ever to do so.
So why is this film so constantly enveloped in a sheer wave of acclaim and praise? Many critics praise this film for its dazzling cinematography, its soaring score, its incredible tunes, or even its choreography. But think there is a lot more to this film than what greets the eye upon first glance.
When I first viewed the film, there was so much hype surrounding it that I was expecting it to wow me right from the get go. And to be honest, it didn’t. Yes, the musical numbers and the long camera shots were impressive, but I thought that the dialogue and the acting felt incredibly scripted at first, something that the picture-perfect world of color could not make up for. It all felt incredibly cheesy.
Something that gave me relief from this was when Ryan Gosling’s character, Sebastian, and Emma Stone’s character, Mia, were conversing about Mia’s one-woman show. As Mia finishes reading through her play, she expresses her concern for the popularity of it, saying that it feels “very nostalgic”. Sebastian comforts her fear of rejection, exclaiming “that’s the point!”. In this scene, I felt as if Mia and Sebastian were not talking about the play at this point. They’re talking about the very film they’re in.
Basically, the director is promising us that his film does serve a purpose and that all the cheesiness and scriptedness is intentional. The film is trying to emulate an old Hollywood spectacle and I do believe that the first half of the show accomplishes this very well with its glamourous depiction of life in general. Mia and Sebastian both face various trials in trying to achieve their dreams, but during the first half of the musical, their lives and their relationship are still depicted as light hearted and somewhat easy. Life is just another day of sun. And then this film shifts.
As Sebastian is talking to his colleague Keith, portrayed by John Legend, Keith rebukes Sebastian about his love for jazz music, saying “how are you going to be revolutionary, if you’re such a traditionalist? You’re focusing on the past, when jazz is about the future.” This line starts the film’s transition from old school Hollywood glamour to the reality of everyday life. In a way, this shift symbolizes Hollywood’s transition itself, in that nobody makes a film that portrays they world as such a bright and beautiful place that’s easy to live in. Instead, directors are now more interested in capturing reality and what life is actually like for people.
The second half of the film is a lot more like a movie that one would come across today. We get to see the film’s characters in a new light, allowing us to realize their faults, their mistakes, and ultimately, their failures. We go from seeing the naturalness and the sweetness of the relationship, to seeing the fights and the hardships the couple encounter while trying to complete their visions for their lives. In a sense, Mia and Sebastian stop being characters in a movie and become two very human people.
The director made very distinct choices in showcasing this shift. For one, the dialogue feels less like a script and more like every day conversations. The colors in this film also dial down in their brightness.
A key theme in this film is the theme of relationships. Not just the relationships between the main characters, but the relationships that the main characters have with their art. Throughout the film, Sebastian claims that he loves jazz because it’s always changing and developing. This is particularly ironic because he is so unwilling to change at all in order to maintain his relationship. Sebastian also only plays one particular style of jazz and repeats the same melody over and over again in the film, showcasing his stubbornness.
Although the film shifts from the old Hollywood style, both Mia and Sebastian are given old Hollywood endings in that they’re given everything that they wanted out of life. Except they are not given each other. Thought we are not shown the reason that they’re not together by the end of the film, we can assume that their relationship failed because they focus on their own career instead of focusing on the needs of the other. Both of the characters seem to have found fulfillment until they meet each other again and realized what could have been, had they put the other first. They are both alerted to a hole in their hearts and in their lives. A hole that can’t be filled with their fame or their successes, but it’s a longing that can only be filled by the other person. And for a moment, it seems as if the dreams that they both worked so hard to achieve aren’t good enough for either of them anymore.
Although this ending is sad, we are comforted by the implied notion that the two are still happy for the dreams that the other has achieved, even if it meant losing them.
La La Land is probably the last film of its kind. Hollywood really doesn’t make films like it anymore, and I think that this contributes to its appeal. Some people praise the firm for its dazzling show numbers but personally, La La Land dazzles me with its complexities. Every time I watch it, I find subtleties and nuances that I couldn’t find before. It’s new every time and I know that it will continue to dazzle me every time that I watch it.
