The opening of the 2017 award season is finally here, and we can certainly say that “La La Land” is one of the best candidates. After winning seven awards at the 2017 Golden Globe, it fascinated the public when the director, Damien Chazelle, chose to innovate the model that was a huge success a few years ago: the musical.
The film’s pair of protagonists are Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), two young artists that dream with success, but have to deal with the hard reality of Hollywood. She is a barista at the Warner Bros’ studios, but wants to be an actress; he is a pianist that can’t get a job as insists over and over again through jazz music. Both are full of dreams, but are stuck at difficult stages of their lives.
The movie starts with an amazing sequence in a crowded Los Angeles highway. At the complex scene, people abandoned their cars – that are stuck at the traffic – to sing. Up to this point, you’re going to fall hard for the beautiful film. After the opening sequel, there are more scenes of singing, but nothing as big as the first one. However, the music continues: at their dialogues or love songs.
The plot is simple, romantic and fun, but somehow is forgotten due to such mastery: direction of art, acting, soundtrack, photography, illumination e direction.
Written by Chazelle, from “Whiplash”, “La La Land” has an amazing photography and colorful and strong settings that remind the 60s and 70s. The illumination sometimes is exaggerated, but fits impeccable at the situations. The costume design was perfectly chosen, and Stone’ s vibrant colors wardrobe is beautiful. Bright and extremely colorful, the musical gives a lot of references from the past years, that are registered at the walls and billboards of Hollywood.
We can’t deny that Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling have great chemistry – and we can’t think of two other actors that would be better as Mia and Sebastian. Even though they are not good singers, the effort that both of them did to sing and dance was worth it and they can certainly convince the public. And yes, Gosling does have piano skills and plays the piano the whole time!
“La La Land” shows that it is still possible to rescue the essence of Hollywood musicals through old references and different structures. Besides that, we have a proof that directors can innovate using elements that dialogues with the current time and still make successful movies.