La La Land - Review

I have seen the trailers, heard from everyone that it is a classic, watched it win awards, liked the memes made of the pair, fell in love with it even before watching it and yesterday I finally watched it unfold on screen. Lets just say I loved it!!!
***Spoiler Alert***
In one of the interview Damien Chazelle said that he wanted to make a musical that every movie lover will watch and not just the musical lovers. And boy, how he did it! He seems to be a game changer in Hollywood and his technique is simple, brilliant direction. Be it Whiplash or La la land, he scores 100/100 for direction. 

Some of you might have heard of the Hollywood classic hit Casablanca. It is a beautiful movie  but for today's age the plot is too simple to be made into a movie. That's what La La Land does so effectively. Give this generation, it's own Casablanca. There are numerous references to Casablanca and many other classics which I am totally unaware of like "Rebel without a cause", "Singing in the rain" etc. But after looking at the way he paid homage to Casablanca, I am pretty sure he would done equally brilliant job with others too. 

Both Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are a treat to watch. What we have in this movie is two very good looking people, dressed up very well, dancing very flawlessly, in very well choreographed scenes and in very well directed shots. It can not get any better than this. 

The moment Mia walks into Seb's towards the end, it is totally Casablanca revamped. And towards the end when Mia turns back one last time and looks at Sebastian, I expected her to say "We'll always have Paris" à la Casablanca and she did say it without uttering a word. That sealed off my love for this movie forever. 

***Spoilers spoilers spoilers***
The symbolism in the movie is what that swept me off my feet. The scene where Mia drives by Rialta and sees it is closed does not serve any purpose except to convey to us that the romance is about to be gone from the movie and yes it does starting from next scene. Towards the end when Sebastian parks the car and is seen entering the bar while there is a huge poster/painting on the wall which he walks by is used to convey that she is still in his thoughts even though he does not notice that. Also the replaying of the scene where they both sit together at the piano and sing "City of stars" is used to convey us that was the last time they both were in Love before life caught up with them. The way the lighting was used to make a scene more intense was another brilliant master stroke. One can say he did wonders with the light in this movie like the theater does with plays. Also the scene of their argument where Jazz is being played in the background and they both talk over it is such a an attention to detail in direction. It emphasizes the argument they are having at that moment as in how he needs to save Jazz. The ending, while many may think, could have been happy, the director clearly conveyed that achieving one's own dream is bigger romance than living with the person whom you love and let your dreams die. For once this ending did not make me sad, okay just a little bit sad, I agree. 

Only complaint about the movie is that the narration becomes a bit slow in some parts. Whiplash was brilliant direction mixed with right pacing. La La Land falters a bit on pacing space but direction is spot-on.

Damien Chazelle, please continue making movies because in this generation, seldom do we watch movies and realize why we loved movies in the first place and your movies tend to do that, at least the last two times they did.