Megalopolis
By Francis Ford Coppola
You are all wrong ☺️
This might not be a film you enjoy, but it is not a bad film.
Although I can admit that many of the storytelling methods Coppola employs in this film have been underused in film or perhaps more applied in classic plays, I think this has contributed to the number of people who feel disconnected from the story. The language quickly changes between classic Shakespearean English and to contemporary slang. Tragedy and comedy feel like the two ends of a steady metronome, each side amplifying the other. This screen script felt to me more like a play, which is definitely to my liking. The acting was spectacular Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel do a fantastic job, but personally I think Aubrey Plaza stills the show with an eccentric caricature for the role of Wow Platinum.
Another aspect I have been struggling to accept in general reviews of Megalopolis, is the lack of ability to read between the lines and not question the narrative. I don’t think the film is supposed to be taken so literally, for example, I don’t think the main character actually stops time. I think that’s a stylised way for the director to tell us that the character views the world at a different pace from everyone else.
The plot is fashioned in the ways of a Greek tragedy. With long monologues, that speak more of human nature than the scene itself, with sprinkles of humour before it drowns you in the feeling of inevitable tragedy. You know bad things are coming and there is no stopping them, because ultimately in Greek tragedies the hero must fall and suffer before rising triumphantly again.
The Roman theme is used to remind us all, that all empires must fall, and regardless of eras and the passing of time, they all fall the same way. Slowly at first, but completely before you know it. It ties it with contemporary politics and makes a clear comment on today’s America. The end is hopeful, choosing to tell us that what falls gives space for something new to rise.
The characters, for the most part, also follow well known tropes from Greek tragedies.
Caesar Catalina is the hero, the dreamer, the opposite of the brutes that enact power through violence. His intentions are good but just like any other hero in a tragedy he must suffer and overcome.
Julia Cicero seems partially inspired by Medea. She helps the hero find and develop what he is looking for, even when it means taking it from her father.
Wow Platinum is Clytemnestra, beautiful but disloyal and vengeful. And, without giving spoilers, that’s all I can say.
Vesta Sweetwater is the virgin, but more than that she is the repeated obsession with purity and depravity that every empire has on its way down. She serves as the visualisation of them vs us. Good vs Evil. Pure vs Unpure. She is the commodification of morals and values.
I could talk about this film for hours.
So yeah, I really liked it. 4.5/5