When all the lights around you went out, only a small beam of light above your head illuminated the eyes of you and me staring at each other. Black and white piano keys jump and dance, romantic particles float into the sky, and love dances quietly under the starry night sky.
Samba, tap, jazz; theater, studio, studio; film, silent, cinema. The most surprising thing is that there is a "golden age" hidden in this colorful city, and the overlapping of singing and dancing and love is also permeated with a strong feeling of fanaticism. Mia's dress, Sebastian's convertible, large areas of bright red, yellow, blue and green color blocks, the film that suddenly burned halfway through the screen, the subtitle form of "The End" at the end of the film... Before the heroine Mia is using her iPhone, In the absence of the modern situation, countless small elements in the film have a strong retro atmosphere, and what is even more exciting is the tribute to various classic movies and musicals.
The scenes of Mia and Seb hanging out on the set, shuttling between various studios, are like traveling back in time and space to the Hollywood studio of the golden age. The music plays and the dancing skirts lead us to be in the music and dance films of the 50s and 60s; When Seb picked up the street lamp, the melody of "Singin' in the Rain" seemed to ring in his ears; Mia and Seb spun and danced under the stars, as if time had returned to "Broadway Melody of 1940"; When the "Silent Film in Fantasy" is played in fast-forward, the film with a dull yellow and rough texture also brings us into the next movie dream.
Due to the limited amount of reading, it is still impossible to fully see the classics that "La La Land" pays homage to, and even most of them fail to notice. But the windows that Ingrid Bergman once photographed on the set, the huge Bergman wallpaper in Mia's bedroom... The straightforward tribute makes all the elements of fascination clearly visible to the audience. Although it is impossible to analyze in detail which classics the details of the various scenes appearing in the film are copied, and the plot of which movie the dance steps reproduced by Mia and Seb are from, but we know that there is a scene and a shadow, and there are still movies in this movie. There are dreams.
In addition to paying tribute to the classic movies, the emotional storyline of "La La Land" is also extremely simple. Combining the sense of age of clothing modeling and art design, a simple and even vulgar love story complements the texture of those classic love movies. How to say this - from the sweet and beautiful love, to the disagreement between the two, and the ending of succumbing to reality, Mia and Seb's love has gone through the most mundane process, which is different from the emotional pattern in most old movies. very close. Damien Chazelle didn't design the script into a complex structure, which may be a bit of a pity for viewers who had high expectations. This story is not refined enough, nor is it innovative enough, but this simplicity is not simple, there is no delicate structure and no metaphors, and even this mediocrity and straightforwardness make their love cute, and also let the people with The sad ending turns into a kind of fulfillment.
We were amused by Seb's honking of the horn every time he drove to pick up Mia, by the scene where Mia showed up at home to set up a candlelit dinner when he wanted to see Seb, and by the fact that Seb ended up using Mia's design for him "Seb's" was moved as a bar sign. Then I learned that the reason why those classics are classics, the reason why those love stories written in the last era are still moving, and the reason why they can be read and watched countless times and can set off waves is that they are ordinary enough.
In addition to the simplicity of the emotional line, there is also the frankness of the emotions and the straightforwardness of the dialogue. Mia and Seb share this unabashed quality of being obsessed with their dreams and candid about reality. Seb and his jazz, Mia and her acting dreams, their performances in the pursuit of dreams are often hilarious. Seb's incomprehension of new forms of jazz after joining a former friend's band, Mia's performance after failing numerous auditions, and the compromises they made to be realistic. The ideal of "to write poetry, to paint, to perform" meets the reality of "no stable income", which makes the film look gloomy in addition to being beautiful, and Seb and Mia's straightforwardness also makes the film real and simple.
"La La Land" is also not lacking in details, and several key words are repeatedly emphasized throughout the film. After three brushes, the clearest word is "freedom". Freedom is that whenever Seb touches the keys, he can't help playing the music he likes, jazz is his eternal beat; freedom is that you can shout "fuck them" even if no one is there for your one-man show; freedom is also Seb Her sister and her lover, blacks and whites love freely regardless of race and eventually go to the palace of marriage; of course, freedom is also dancing when music sounds, bars, trams, planetariums, and the banks of the Seine are all revolving stages...
The film's game between tradition and fashion, from jazz all the way back to the film itself, all the "basics" that can be split are combined into a new model, and the details are not separated from the whole. As Seb's friend said to him: If no one listens to your music, how can you save it? ——"La La Land" reminisces about tradition and classics with innovative changes.
Even with the most old-fashioned design of the storyline, La La Land also creates a freshness. The integration of singing and dancing elements, the combination of bright colors, and the performances of Sister Shitou and Commander Gao all present an amazing visual feast. Although the singing and dancing parts are also mediocre, and the dance steps of the two protagonists are extremely simple, they pay homage to the classic singing and dancing fragments, and decorate the "La La Land" with an electric and flint dream. Love, dreams, music, dance, and nostalgia. Love each other when you like it, dance when you are happy, all the ordinary makes the movie a kind of pure, this kind of pure is a dream.
The most emotional and lingering thing is two things, one is a movie obsession, and the other is a dream. Mia and Seb's love itself is as beautiful as a dream. Mia fell in love with the jazz she didn't like because of Seb, their date was to watch an old movie at the cinema... all the time they spent together made the mouth of the person watching the movie go up, their love satisfied my love The whole fantasy of romance. Maybe everyone who is looking forward to love will also look forward to a "you again" in their life that they meet late; I look forward to someone appearing at the door of the house on time at 8:00 in the morning. Tell you that he is waiting for you outside the door; expect the other person's sentence "You left me with no choice"; he plays the melody he likes to you, and he explains to you the persistent music he loves; Ideal, and more determined because of each other, even if the pursuit of dreams is a difficult process, but because of the existence of each other, the hardships have become a wonderful journey...
The movie collages a beautiful dream about love and dreams with quick and neat editing. Even if Mia and Seb ended up with a sad ending, the beautiful moments in the image are enough to make us outside the screen fascinated. Such a simple story is already like a dream, but one dream is not enough - the scene five years later, at the end of the movie, is also the two scenes where Seb is playing the piano and another dream is created in the scene. When the melody of "City Of Stars" is played, the notes surround time to create a dream, extending in the ups and downs of the universe to form a parallel space-time.
Spring sprouts, summer is hot, autumn fades, and winter withers. The alternation of winter, spring, summer, autumn, and winter compares the ups and downs of Mia and Seb's love. The reincarnation of the four seasons is also the passage of their life stages and fates, and the parallel space-time dream also revolves around time. Mia walked into the bar called "Seb's", the blue neon tubes formed a dream, and the motion shots of several camera rotations made a dizzying blurred dream... The circular clock, the circular dream, Time that cannot flow backwards in real life can be done in movies. Because it is a dream, and the dream is fragile, they finally return to reality. A song only takes a few minutes, but it makes regrets perfect, and broken is beautiful.
After all the colorful romance and fantasy, one ending attracted a burst of sadness. Seb withdrew his hands from the keys and raised his head, meeting Mia's sideways glance and looking back at each other. Reality is always not as light as a smile and a slight nod. The reunion five years later, the encounter without dialogue, the ending without a problem, the most heart-wrenching look back.
And the reason for our stupor is not just the end of a love affair, a regrettable ending. The nostalgia of "La La Land", its songs, dances and music, its tribute to the classics, its fascination complex, the beautiful love it built, the dreams it weaved and the illusions it created, in exchange for the phrase "beautiful" Or a high score, but these two simplest words are all the moving that the medium, carrier, and material of film brings to us. After all, life is still too far from the movie. I know it is a dream, so I am infatuated. Because it is a dream, it is even more addictive. If you end up having a dream, you can at least not wake up, wait for the broken, wait for the disillusionment, and then let the time flow backwards and flow into the next dream, and continue to be intoxicated like a dream.
Go against the flow of time, return to a movie dream, embrace the screen, and enjoy the illusion. Cinephile, nostalgic; dream, addicted. People who love LALALAND love movies even more.
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