By Niklas Müller
2016 Summit Entertainment, LLC. All Rights Reserved
GRADE: A+
I really couldn't think of a better way to open this new site, then to write a review about my favorite film of all time: Damien Chazelle's unapologetically nostalgic and sometimes even melancholic masterpiece La La Land. There's really no obvious reason as to why specifically this film is my "favorite", other than, as plain as it may sound, that I just really adore it. I also think if you want to become a Filmmaker (as do I), this may very well be the film that'll push you over the edge and tell you "Just go for it, anything is possible".
Chazelle was always interested in musicals and he wrote the Screenplay back in 2010, when he thought he'd never get to make this film. So that should probably tell you that even the wildest of dreams are possible (like making a big budgeted musical in 2016).
La La Land isn't the type of film, that only has the good acting, or the dazzling Cinematography. No, it really has it all. It is a lyrical masterpiece, that will you amazed by it, that will make you wanna have such a magical relationship, that will make you fall in love with musicals. Even if musicals aren't as big anymore as they used to be in the 30s to the 60s, they are going through a sort of revitalization at the moment (for instance 2021 was indeed a big year for a great variety of musicals and gave us such masterpieces as In the Heights or Steven Spielberg's new interpretation of the 1961 classic, West Side Story). It gave us the feeling that moviegoers might have had when they experienced Singin' in the Rain or The Sound of Music for the first time.
And speaking of those films, above everything else La La Land is a beautiful love letter to the art of musicals. It doesn't even matter if we're talking about film musicals or Broadway musicals. Damien Chazelle just shows us how much he truly relishes them. There are so many hidden references to the classics in this film, it is truly insane. For instance the undoubtedly best scene in the film is the 7 minute epilogue scene towards the end of the film. It is a direct reference to the last 17 minutes of An American in Paris, where no one talks directly, but rather the music and set pieces are doing all of the talking.
But La La Land isn't just this picture perfect fairytale coming in disguise as a musical, at certain points the film can get very real very fast. For instance, you can clearly see that it's musical up to the point where Mia (an Oscar winning performance from Emma Stone) and Sebastian (a wonderfully realistic Ryan Gosling), in fact (maybe surprisingly for some viewers), break up. At this very moment it stops being this happy, everything is rosy film. It immediately confronts you with the harsh reality, that not every relationship works out, oblivious to the fact how perfect it might have looked on paper. The musical aspects start resurfacing with the audition scene. The moment Mia is joyful once again. But even after that they are not coming back together. They both fulfill their life's dreams (as we see in a beautiful flash forward), but they do not get their happily ever after. And that is okay, we didn't need that, this (the flash forward) is reality. Even if not everyone likes it.
Speaking of the audition scene, this one is truly a prefect scene in a film ridden with perfect scenes. I am sure that this was the moment when people knew, that Emma Stone would go on to win the Oscar. Not just Stone's performance, but Gosling's as well, aren't the typical awards-baity, showcasy roles (like Joaquin Phoenix in Joker, whereas he obviously should have won for his more grounded work in The Master), but they are rather realistic. Grounded and naturalistic in their execution.
2016 Summit Entertainment, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
As I already wrote above La La Land might not be to everyone's taste and not every critic found it to be the best film of 2016 and that is obviously alright. But to me, personally, this is a perfect film, that I adore now and forever with all my heart.
DIRECTOR: Damien Chazelle
WRITER: Damien Chazelle
CAST: Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, John Legend, Rosemarie DeWitt, Finn Wittrock and J.K. Simmons
RUNTIME: 128 Minutes
RELEASE YEAR: 2016
If you're interested in more opinions from me, feel free to follow me on Twitter @bensmithawards
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