Don’t be bothered by the rating stars seen at the beginning of this review. It has been included for form’s sake, and its position is quite satisfied to suggest that everyone interested in even a fraction of its content should go and watch the film Megalopolis, a four-decades long passion project for Francis Ford Coppola that has now finally made the big screen in all its craziness. That does not mean that you’ll enjoy this film. I wouldn’t be polemical with someone who detested it or absolutely adored it. And I really do feel as though my score will be much higher or lower next time I watch it. So many details, too numerous in fact for comprehension at first viewing, particularly when one is at break point. The fact is that I am not certain what viewing this film is like can be quite effectively described using words, considering what’s at stake is the very essence of an art piece: the painting of a visionary director of cinema.
“Megalopolis” is a cinematic work that is noticeable for its overwhelming prescience and various classical elements and is accompanied by grossly inadequate performances supported by elaborate film-making choices. It is in turn wonderful and disturbing, more so in that it has a fairly standard narrative structure when one considers the resolution of the film in relation to the rest of the film. This is not a film about plot progression, rather it is focused on the magnificence of Coppola’s eccentric creative ideas. It is also apparent who the real audience of the film is, and for whatever reason, this specific moment in time seems like the right one to be releasing such a film. Civilizations come and go, and only the creative thinkers truly matter. It is almost reassuring to believe that art will endure when our current day civilization’s collapse.
Now is the moment where the reader normally reaches his or her conclusion. Please stay with me. ‘Megalopolis’ is takes place in New Rome which bears strong resemblance to New York City while its inhabitants experience the same political and personal conflicts. Adam Driver portrays the role of Cesar Catalina, an architect who has the ability stop time just like Neo and interacts with an unusual substance called Megalon. Of course they are, for these are the scenes in which Cesar soars over his town and employs a lens to view the land he is overseeing in great detail. At least, in my opinion. There is so much in this film that is subjective and even some of them, to my opinion, are even non-subjective.
Cesar’s past returns to haunt him in New Rome as he continues to tussle with the City Mayor Franklyn Cicero (played by Giancarlo Esposito). As he works towards the development of ‘Cicero’, which provides more detail on how historical structures conflict with the new ideologies, the plot twist struggles when Cesar, much to his cousin Clodio Pulcher’s (Shia LaBeouf), dismay, becomes romantically involved with Cicero’s daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel). Clodio was of course in love with the Juliet. Hamilton Crassus III (played by Jon Voight), Cesar’s other father, is a good looking billionaire and powerful figure in the city. Whether out of boredom or something else, the father starts dating an Oh Wow Platinum (played by Aubrey Plaza), a tv reporter and follower of Cesar’s mistress, at the same beginning point. These six persons are the primary leaders, however, they are joined by Lawrence Fishburne, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, and the iconic Talia Shire as well.
“Megalopolis” is a detonation of concepts about acceptable structures within society and how such structures are always detached from the needs of the people. It not only recalls a bona fide coup attempt in ancient Rome in 63BCE (which had players named Cataline, Cicero and Caesar), but Driver’s very first major shot consists of quoting ‘Hamlet’ for an entire scene. From this point on the literary works and historical figures are thrown in the mix as if they were Marvel easter eggs, including Siddhartha, Marcus Aurelius, Sappho, the list goes on and on. In his betrayals and power play, Coppola lays down narratives steeped in classical philosophy and dramatic artistry and tries to crown it with a futuristic vision. Cesar is described as ‘A man of the future so obsessed by the past.’ That’s the movie. One that incorporates ‘Hamlet’ into a story about a miraculous substance that changes everything. It’s Julius Caesar, from the perspective of a man who wanted to create his own ‘Metropolis’.
And one can see why such a vision is appealing, but there will be people furious at the end of this film because of the many contradictions it contains. At points, it is simply poorly constructed, as if the editor got it wrong or perhaps Coppola didn’t film the scenes that were required to illustrate the link inhis ideas.
At first, he will create a plot that could ignite a civil war, but after that, he will do almost nothing on the plot, simply making it seem like everything has already been devised. The climax seems to be headed for the all out chaos that is promised at least once to the viewer in the film, but no such chaos ensues. Yet, many of the most important shots here are astonishing even the one where Cesar drives the veterans through the streets of the new Rome and effigies of the scales of justice getting tired and drooping, it is a beautiful picture of a world nearing its end Another sequence is almost instantly blanked out, at least the early watch or watched in a bit rushed the first real downfall was the centerpiece of the wedding or a joyous colosseum style one and one begins to wonder whether coppola abandoned the story for visual extravagance.
It is also evident that this creativity overwhelmed some of the actors in the company of Coppola myself included who struggled to know what they had to anchor in. The older of the performers manage all right with Driver, Esposito or Voight working it out , while the younger ones sometimes appear to be lost, without being sure whether they are in the middle of portraying stereotypes or actually real people. Some have claimed that FFC was devising fresh plans during the filming, twisting meanings and personalities in a way that must have been chaotic for those around him. You can notice it. Especially on occasions when it does not work.
When it works, it’s a feature, not a bug. Parts of the picture “Megalopolis” which are like, I don’t know, craters and gorgeously shot by charming Mihai Mălaimare Jr. (who shot FFC’ s Youth , The Master and so on ) who also had to screen three thirds of the IMAX screeches that I am increasing for its shots. I did at least for some moments wonder whether some characters were about to start singing because the scene was that much out of reality. It’s always been about character and what they say so that kind of self-expression is simply impossible.
The lack of structure is similarly troubling in the very last hour of the movie, which is when I noticed I really did not care how it was going to end. I mean, it’s not that type of picture. And do not say, even for a second, that sophia coppola expects us to emotionally engage in the destinies of cesar and julia. The struggle is to think about, rather, create these narratives for the society of the future. One of the characters of the ‘Megalopolis’ states that “Utopias turn into dystopias,” and it is possible that this has been relevant since the tortures of Copley in the post Vietnam America, as it is now. The Elizabethan era as well. Even 63 BC for crying out loud. But really it seems the unchanging nature of human life is another of the Strong themes in Coppola’s works. It is the ideologists whom history will remember as a utopia, which is transformed again and again into a dystopia. Visionaries like Francis Ford Coppola.
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