Review

Rating: 7/10 (28 September 2017)

La La Land is a movie by Damien Chazelle which brings back together with old musicals like Singin' in the Rain, Broadway Melody, shall we Dance and much more. Overall it is a movie about movies. The whole movie plot is about potential but struggling actress Mia who thought that she can be an actor because her aunt showed her some "Casablanca" posters when she was younger and jazz pianist Sebastian who is currently stuck with the idea of bringing back the glory of jazz like before. The beginning of the movie took my breath away, even though I am not a big fan of the musicals, but that bridge scene was stunning. Later, the whole plot of the movie was about following struggling lives of actors until their paths came across, and then guess what, they fall in love, nothing to be surprised for. Later, they started to support each other towards their life dreams, until Mia dumps Sebastian because he was going for guaranteed success instead of opening jazz bar. Mia went home to her parents and giving up on her dream to become actress until Sebastian comes and saves the day by persuading Mia to go to this promising audition, and then something happened that I didn't even expect to happen, they both went separate ways, until they met again in future Mia as successful actress with family and Sebastian with this dream achieved to open successful jazz bar. That scene was interesting because I didn't even expect it and it kept the dose of reality, it was a happy ending but not as usually one. This film had some interesting moments from technical / shooting aspect. The cinematography is good and the movie is visually perfect, but what can you expect from the movie with more than 30 million dollars budget. I really liked that the movie was shot in the way that somehow it reminds you of old days, because of the visuals you could say that, it is only because of the usage of modern technologies like iPhone, new cards etc. it is obvious that is modern age. This movie includes one interesting scene that can be referenced as slight return of Mise en scène, scene where Mia and Sebastian were on their first date, there were in cinema watching "Rebel Without a Cause", the situation between them were starting to get bit more serious until the screen goes black because of technical issues, and then everything stops. The lighting and colors were playing a huge roll in the movie, colors were crucial in displaying the current emotions. The blue color was used a lot, it surrounded Mia few times, for example, the moment when Sebastian had the first concert with a bend, she also had a blue dress at the party, and the city was shining blue after she left the party. The yellow played a huge role because it symbolized the change ahead. Like the moment when Mia and Sebastian danced after party, Mia's dress was yellow and before that, they were in not so friendly relation but after the dance, they looked like more than some friends. Also, the moment when they were on dinner they both were bathed in yellow color while the background was green in the end that scene resulted with the possible break up. I really liked the moment where they shot the 360-degree scene with Mia singing the song, it looked like she is alone in her own universe telling the tale about her struggling to reach the stars. From the analytical aspect, the movie is decent but I have expected more. The story was so basic that even clichés had clichés, even though I was really surprised by ending it caught me off guard, there was that dose of reality trough whole movie that I really liked.