Wt 'La La Land' Can teach( All of Us) BW about Love

(Note: This article may contain spoilers)

"Here's to the hearts that ache.
Here's to the mess we make."
- Audition (The Fools Who Dream)', La La Land

On a 70 mm screen, love looks larger than life. Sighs of young love look ravishing in technicolor, obstacles appear intimidating in surround sound and everyone expects a happy, satisfactory end and a long walk into the sunset.

But sometimes, if we're lucky, comes along a love story which makes our hearts ache. We feel the grand rhythms of love but are also made acutely aware of the staccato beats of mundane reality. Damien Chazelle's La La Land is one such film; blending uncomplicated love with melancholic truths and leaves us wanting for more.

Dear Bollywood, Modern Love Doesn't Have to be Commitment Phobic
"I'll always love you."

Sitting on a park bench, Mia (played by Emma Stone) tells Sebastian (played by Ryan Gosling), and he responds with a sardonic "You know I'll always love you too."
Both Mia and Emma appear to be characters from a different era, stuck in 21st century Los Angeles solely on the strength of their dreams. He is a jazz pianist, fiercely passionate about its history, only to realise that the kind of music he wants to play is heard by only 90-year-olds. She grew up staging plays with her aunt, working as a barista at a cafe in the Warner Brothers' lot and being rejected in one audition after another.

But sometimes, if we're lucky, comes along a love story which makes our hearts ache. We feel the grand rhythms of love but are also made acutely aware of the staccato beats of mundane reality. Damien Chazelle's La La Land is one such film; blending uncomplicated love with melancholic truths and leaves us wanting for more.



But when they fall in love, they do so quickly and unabashedly. There's no should I text him first?' conundrum of modern love and no we-don't-yet-know-what-we-are' dilemmas. Mia and Sebastian's love plays out in modern LA, is entangled in messy ambitions but is unafraid of being romantic.

Contrast this with Aditya Chopra's Befikre which was sold to us as a modern love story, but premised on two young people who are apprehensive about even uttering I love you' to each other. Why does contemporary Bollywood romance shy away from taking a deep dive into old-world love?
As an exasperated Sebastian asks his practical sister, "What's wrong in being romantic?"

Epic Love Stories, And Incomplete Endings



Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in La La Land.

"That's the window where Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman used to look out from."
An excited Mia tells Sebastian as she shows him around the Warner Brothers' plot right at the beginning of their relationship. The reference to the 1942 movie Casablanca is not incidental. Just as Rick and Ilsa swear eternal love but are forced to hold on to the memory of Paris; Mia and Sebastian too must choose between eternal love and their dreams. And towards the end of the film, when Mia walks into Sebastian's jazz club, one can almost hear Rick saying "Out of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.."

The best love stories, the ones you remember long after the lights come on in the theatre, are the ones which leave you with a heartache. Think of Ann and Joe in Roman Holiday and Salim and Anarkali in Mughal-e-Azam. Even when you know that these couples will not get their happy ending, you hopelessly believe in their love.

Chazelle takes a risk with La La Land by making us invest so heavily in Mia and Sebastian's love and then gently reminding us that sometimes love needs to slowly bow down to everyday hurdles. It reminds us that even though Mia and Sebastian's love may not get a happy ending, they will always love each other " and always have Paris.' (Or Los Angeles)

Damien Chazelle's La La Land is a musical, but at heart, its a jazz performance. Raw, spontaneous, full of conflict and unforgettable. The songs in the film are not an artifice as it is in some musicals, but seamlessly blends with its characters and their moods. Linus Sandgren's luminous frames are in tandem with Justin Hurwitz's scores; each note scored and each frame shot with unflinching love.
La La Land has got seven nominations at the Golden Globes 2017, including the Best Director gong for Chazelle.

But for once, awards don't matter. La La Land is a brilliant and wholly original love letter to cinema " they truly don't make movies like this anymore.

BRILLIENT BRILLIENT BRILLIENT movie. 👏 This has become one of my fav movie. The preview i was at was jam packed and this received plenty of applause as well as plenty of tears. They guy right next to me was using his sleeve to wipe away his tears.

🥺 ..i wanna watch this...

Originally posted by: Resident_Evil

BRILLIENT BRILLIENT BRILLIENT movie. 👏 This has become one of my fav movie. The preview i was at was jam packed and this received plenty of applause as well as plenty of tears. They guy right next to me was using his sleeve to wipe away his tears.

La La Land review: You'll fall in love with the movies again. 5 stars


Here's to the fools who dream

La La Land
Director - Damien Chazelle
Cast - Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone
Rating - 5/5

They say the world is dying. They say movies are dead. And they say movie musicals are definitely dead. But there is a cure to this savagery; there is an antidote to this absurdity. It is a movie. It is a musical. It is a musical about movies. It's called La La Land and it is here to save your life.


But it won't come to you. You must go to it. You have been wronged far too often, I know; the movies have wronged us all. They have stood us up, left us alone on rainy curbs, but you must put your faith in them, one last time, if only to restore it. You must run to La La Land.

It is the story of two dreamers, lost in the City of Stars. He is an aspiring jazz pianist, and she, a hopeful actor with posters of Ingrid Bergman on her wall. Their paths cross, again and again and again in a montage of expertly choreographed numbers as they navigate the magic realism of La La Land, and struggle with their hopes and dreams in a city that can be as stifling as it is inspiring.

Save for a major upset, La La Land will win the Academy Award for Best Picture in February 2017 - not because it should - but because it absolutely must.

From its euphoric opening number, set on a Los Angeles freeway, to its final, melancholic moments, inside a jazz club; there is not a single moment, not a single glint in the eye, a single smile, a single swish of the dress that doesn't completely envelope you with its irrepressible charm. It'll sweep you off your feet, and for 2 hours, it'll make you fall in love with the movies again.

It might even have the power to single-handedly revive the dying theatre-going experience. It may not be able to save the musical, but for as long as it exists - as long as movies exist - it will ensure that the respect this genre deserves is given to it, even as it takes its last bow, and limps off the stage, having danced to the bitter end.

And for as long as every Friday brings with it new attractions at the local theatre, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone will be remembered as one of the most iconic romantic couples in Hollywood history, just like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, or, keeping with the musical theme, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

There's something enchanting about watching Ryan Gosling's face, isn't there... bathed in the neon of a Los Angeles night, and dripping in the magic hour twilight of its days. With more classics on his CV than most actors can manage in five-decade-long careers, can there be any doubt now that Ryan Gosling is a movie star in the league of Brando, De Niro, Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant? I pity the person who walks away from this film, and its two central performances, not having been utterly astounded by its brilliance.

But who do we kneel before?

Shot by Linus Sandgren in Cinemascope (!), and on film (!), so beautifully that you could blindly pick any frame of La La Land, and frame it on your wall - it's almost as if the camera is dancing with them. Los Angeles has never looked so good, and neither have its many iconic, cinematic locations that the movie twists and twirls between. Griffith Observatory, Angel's Flight, Chateau Marmont... They're all venerable old movie characters now. It was good to see them again.

But director Damien Chazelle, that champion of cinema... In times like these, when most people prefer staying at home, has given us a reason to march to the theatres once again. You could always watch La La Land on your mobile phone or laptop, but to experience it on the biggest screen possible is an opportunity not to be missed. And on IMAX, it was overwhelming. There was applause, there were groans, there was laughter. And there were tears.

Chazelle is leading the fight to preserve the magic of the movies. His previous film Whiplash was my favourite of 2014. La La Land is one of my favourites of all time. Depending on how life has treated you, its final moments will be either devastating or irrecoverably shattering. It's one of the finest sequences ever put on film.

But now, it is time to wait, it is time to consume mediocrity that will surely kill us one day. But this time we wait with renewed faith. Perhaps it'll be another year till something as great as this comes around. Perhaps it'll be two. Perhaps we'll be waiting all our lives. But at least now, we know that it is coming. There is hope yet. The movies are alive. You are alive.

Originally posted by: ImagineMe

I watch it this weekend with Fences.

Soundtrack is on loop. 😆

They are so bloody perfect together. I glad I saw this one.

Originally posted by: Resident_Evil

I KNOW RIGHT!!! I hate broadway shows and musicals but this is the first soundtrack that i dowloaded and am listening to. I hope it gets a Oscar for best song cuz i hate to see that godawful Moana getting an award for one of its crappy songs.

I missed Fences this past weekend and i am really upset cuz Denzel Washington and Viola Davis were present at the screening for introduction of the movie.

Originally posted by: ImagineMe

Lucky you to have access to such private screenings. I'm a movie buff too (duh) but I'm not in the Hollywood area.

It will get an Oscar for song, amongst others. I saw Jackie too btw... Natalie has a showy performance, can get her the second oscar (too soon I think 😡). Would love for Stone to bag the Best Actress. Let's see who takes SAG. That will be a pretty good indicator of who will win the top prize.

Fences has a rousing trailer. Truly a dramatic film with towering performances by the lead. Viola steals the show and will get her SA oscar. (The studio decided to put her in that category 🤓... to avoid conflict with Stone and Portman 🥱)