C'est La La Vie...

Rating: 8/10 (15 February 2017)

"People love what other people are passionate about."
Being at the top of the quotes' section, I guess that statement had the most powerful resonance in the hearts of all the fools, dreamers, lovers who experienced, with amusement and amazement "La La Land". This is not Mia talking but Damien Chazelle, Hollywood's child prodigy, though what he did is sure no "child's work".
Chazelle made a spectacular entrance with "Whiplash", a spellbinding masterpiece exalting the virtues of work, passion and discipline. And by tying the Oscar-nominations record of "Titanic" and "All About Eve", "La La Land" makes exactly the point of "Whiplash", the one missed by those who label it as a 'musical', while you can enjoy it without even being impressed by the music (although I find it difficult not to be mildly haunted by that score from Justin Hurwitz, a melody echoing the work of Michel Legrand and that doesn't get off the head easily).
"Here's to the fools who dream".
"La La Land" follows the ups-and-downs of a romance between Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) a pianist as passionate about jazz as J.K. Simmons in "Whiplash" (Simmons has a small part) and Mia (Emma Stone), a struggling actress stuck in Cinderella-phase, working in a Hollywood cafeteria with a string of auditions' failures that severely undermined her self-confidence. And while it's easier for pianists to find jobs, Seb is a purist who can't stand selling his soul for pop music or any modernized, youth-appealing, version of jazz.
But there's no villain in "La La Land" except for reality and its necessary compromises. Together, Mia and Seb find the motivation to achieve their dreams. Seb works with a band lead by Keith, an old friend played by John Legend, so he can provide for Mia while she writes a one-woman-show, and stops relying on auditions. It is very telling that she wants to be an actress and he a jazz pianist, Mia must learn how to act, and not surrender to defeatism, while Seb has got to play the game, and as Keith says "not try to revolutionize something by being traditional". The irony is that while they try to reach happiness, they're happy and have the time of their life.
"Life is what happens to you while you're making projects".
Chazelle doesn't share John Lennon's view of happiness, his vision follows the same pattern than "Whiplash", to the point I wondered if Chazelle wasn't the kind of workaholic guy who decided one day that he had to dedicate 100% of his time to movie-making at the expenses of love comfort. It seems like you can see his personal story behind his work and I feel that it's for this sincerity, that he's one of these artists who peak very early like Scorsese or Tarantino. Now, I know I could go on the stylish directing and the whole love letter to Hollywood but this is one aspect that I'm less hot about.
The first sunny and enthusiastic dance sequence was nothing but a masterpiece of choreographic directing and time will tell if it becomes as iconic as the beginning of "West Side Story" but personally, I was not impressed... in the sense that I felt it was Chazelle begging for the Oscar, especially since the scene doesn't stop after the music and the film goes on. It was remarkable but in such a showy way it felt too Oscar-baity for its own good. But Chazelle is a jazzy director: he knows when to over-bake it and when to play it smooth. So, I let myself transported by the film and at the Planetarium sequence, I was literally transported by the poetry of the moment, like "what the heck" this is good, give the film the awards it deserves.
Yes, "La La Land" is stylish and you can see the director and writer's touches of unpredictability everywhere, in the backgrounds, in the use of phone calls, even the title is a clever bit of creativity, this is one of these cases where the directing is in symbiosis with the story, like in Scorsese's movie. And rightfully so because the story isn't even revolutionary and we've seen it a thousand times but it's in the storytelling and that magnificent 'rewriting' third act. The finale redeemed the slower second act and echoed how many feel about life: you can succeed through money, love and dreams, you're happy if you get two out of three. By that logic, Mia and Seb are happy at the end, but indulge to a fantasy sequence where they succeed in everything.
And as dreamy as it was, the 'fantasy' sequence was still plausible... had they engaged in a transparent, sincere and flawless relationship from the start. But who said life was flawless? I spend my whole life rewriting my story and asking myself: "what if I had done this or that?", it's never totally unrealistic, but that's the whole fantasy aspect about it, when you know what awaited you, it's easier to look at your past in retrospect. You only realize your mistakes when it's you late, otherwise, you wouldn't call them mistakes. And well, five years later, they still have good reasons to smile despite the wasted opportunities, because when you sacrifice love for dreams, the lost love becomes the dream. C'est la la vie!
Finally
Speaking of life, this is my 1000th review, I'm sad that IMDb is shutting down the message boards and wanted a feel-good movie for the occasion. Yet I felt cheated, because Chazelle doesn't go for sentimentality at the end as romantic and deliberately kitsch as it was, "La La Land" is true to life because it has a little twist called reality. I don't know if I feel so good after all I feel good in the way this film made me feel about life... but maybe I wanted the dream, after all.