La La Land

I know that this one is a book blog, but yesterday night I watched La La Land and I would want to write down some considerations.

I hadn't never seen this musical, I had just read a wonderful review in the Boston Globe many years ago but I had completely forgotten this movie.

Let's start to saying that if more musicals would be made it would be wonderful. I am a fan of the genre.

The movie with Emma Stone And Ryan Gosling won 6 Academy Awards. 

Written and directed by Damiene Chazelle, this one is the story of Sebastian and Mia. Mia would want to become an actress; Sebastian would want to open a jazz local and he  would want to realize his inner dream of becoming someone unusual, writing, playing songs he loves to playing; also when people don't love what he does. The two soon become a couple and they are simply perfect, sharing same feelings, ideas and life's vision. Something change when Sebastian signs a contract with a friend of him in need of a piano singer; the band and music are completely different from the genre Sebastian does but he can earns money and Mia can goes proud of him.

Mia at the same time tries and tries a lot of auctions but without any success. Tired of this situation and frustrated because of the lack of success of his show in theather, she decides of moving on, leaving Sebastian, the city where she has invested her time and passion for six years, returning home.

Sebastian knows Mia and he loves her profoundly also if things are not matching anymore greatly between the two; there is respect, knowledge for the other, a real tender approach and when Sebastian receives the call from an important studio, it's a call for Mia, he run at the house of Mia, convincing her of giving a try at this new chance. Altruistically and in love, he did not hide this crucial information. Mia, in case taken in the production will live to Paris at long. Sebastian can't follow her. What to do? What will happen at their relationship? 

It happens that Mia will change and will take other decisions. This movie is substantially the metaphor of life: what would have happened if?

Five years later we meet Mia again, completely changed (that story it's up to people if they want to change if they change their social status, if they make money: let's remark it) with a husband and a son, a beautiful house and a successful career. With the husband they decide to go out, and they will end in the Jazz local open by Sebastian. After all he realized his dream. When she saw him and when Sebastian saw her, there was in the protagonists, in particular in Emma that regret and big melancholy that the if bring with it. And she imagines another story and another end. With Sebastian. What if....What if she would have had more success in theater; what if Sebastian would have supported her much more when she needed him? Substantially they would have ended, as it happened with Mia and her new partner, together; they would have built a family and they would have been happy forever and together. With that informality, with that love, kidness that they knew very well and that with the new husband can't exist. 

But it didn't happen, because life can't be written, it's not perfect, situations can't be changed, a work can't be given up because a partner feels the exigency of having close to her the other one; and sometimes being extremely busy Sebastian missed of proving to Mia his love for her. 

So, Paris returned to be a city of Love, changing the destiny of Mia forever.

When she leaves, Mia will look back another time at Sebastian and Sebastian will meet her eyes, smiling approving, and still loving her and trying to follow, after all what Mia had always said him: staying the old guy she knew.

In this case I felt that Mia was profoundly changed; Sebastian after his experience with his friend's band returned to be the boy he was, following his feelings, music, ideals.

The movie put in connection problematic as the realizations of the self. Many broken dreams, many unrealized desires, and a lot of traumatic experiences; a lot of no's; as in the sing song by Sebastian, City of Stars he will say, "City of Stars, are you shining just for me?" remarking the unicity of every man and at the same fragility, uncertainty.

The movie reads the melancholy and solitude of the moment. Although surrounded by many people, there is an elevated solitude, and at the same time the desire of brighting like a star. But...Is it possible?

I Iove the scene, portrayed wonderfully well of Mia and Sebastian, flying in the sky, touching the clouds. In love, the couple feels the perception of moving away from the ordinary life; touching sky and stars, reaching their dreams and existential perfection.

I don't know if that Planet that obscured for some second the couple can be read as the sign of an approaching storm. Maybe the biggest lesson learned through this movie, - pretty hard, after all, the end will leave you sad if you loved the couple Sebastian-Mia as I did, but is absolutely realistic, - is this one: life can't be re-written or imagined in its perfection but just accepted in its reality.

Anna Maria Polidori