La La Land

Rating: 10/10 (21 December 2016)

With its extravagant, fantastically choreographed opening scene, all done in a single long take, "La La Land" shows that it is inspired by the great classic musicals from the golden age of Hollywood, yet I can say with certainty that this surpasses all of those.
Last year, the most technically impressive films of the year were "The Revenant" and "Mad Max: Fury Road", two intense action films. This year, it's "La La Land", a romantic musical. The cinematography, set design, costume design, and choreography of the film are all pretty much flawless. Almost every dance scene is done in one perfect long take, as the camera flows naturally with the characters' dance, and when they are cuts, it is edited flawlessly, and each moment transitions into the next perfectly. The cinematography and editing are fast paced and energetic when they need to be, but also slow and elegant when necessary. The film is incredibly ambitious, which fits, considering it's about having dreams and ambitions, and just going for them.
On top of its technical brilliance, the film has fantastic writing and characters, and just as the set design and choreography and cinematography and lighting and lyrics of each musical number perfectly align, the musical numbers flow perfectly with the story. The musical numbers are reflections of the characters' romanticism of each other and the world around them, and as they slowly lose their romanticism, the dance numbers begin to happen less. Even outside of the musical numbers, the cinematography, lighting, and colors of each scene match the feelings of the characters. Vibrant reds, blues, greens, and yellows show up often to depict the joy and happiness of the characters while more dull and standard lighting shows their displeasure with their life at the moment. There is also one fantastic montage in which the cinematography depicts how both characters, while still in a relationship, now feel distant and lonely due to complications with their jobs. The film is also incredibly comedic at times (mostly towards the beginning), and the performances by the main two leads are very charismatic and passionate, and it allowed me to easily connect with these two characters.
Damien Chazelle has proved himself to be among the greatest and most original directors working today. In 2014, he did his first film, "Whiplash" and it blew me away. Now he has done his second film, and it is completely different in tone, genre, and style, yet is executed just as perfectly.