Megalopolis
Not really sure where to begin with this film. Is film even the right word? This cinematic fever dream is pretty clearly the result of a man’s singular vision both in how bold and innovate it feels, and to its detriment. I mean it’s incoherent in just about every way a film is able to be, it really feels like the musings of someone who read a philosophy book and got high. It’s an extremely bizarre ride, there’s nuggets of genius hidden behind the boulders of madness and none of these nuggets manage to outweigh the complete insanity that has to be endured to find a reason to watch this other than it being a spectacle.
If I was to sum up Megalopolis it would be a filmmaker of a bygone era who is attempting to usher in a new one. It’s evident the time Coppola came up in and his proclivities. The way he writes women is completely archaic, the pure sexualisation, the infatuation with women being sexualised beings or holding virtually no autonomy, it's insulting to see a movie this large treat it's women as completely in service to its men. Nathalie Emmanuel’s character, Julia, is so devoid of any characterisation other than her devotion to Adam Driver who plays Cesar or trying to show her father that Cesar is a good guy. It falls into the genius male trope as well, which feels so dated now, a woman falls hopelessly in love with a man because he's a genius and worse in this movie he's a misunderstood genius that only Julia is able to see. The instigating scene of her falling for Cesar is the scene that's been making the rounds on the internet - the "go back to the club" scene - and I really sat down watching this stupidly funny scene and realised that moments after being completely insulted by this man she brushes this off because of I don't know his genius. I actually found myself laughing that something this backwards was screening in cinemas. When so much of the movie is framed from her perspective as well, and how she is so enamoured by Cesar, instead of being compelled by her feelings, it just becomes laughable really, it's insulting to her character but also it just hurts the idea Coppola is trying to convey of Cesar being this misunderstood genius.
This issue plagues essentially ever other female in the film, it felt very much like the direction was "act sexy". The only saving grace is Aubrey Plaza, who ends up being the highlight of the film. I think this comes down to Plaza understanding what film she was in and being able to elevate what was written on the page. Where she to play her character as serious as the other actors in the film I could see her being another overly sexualised and underwritten character, but her performance allows her character to be some level of camp which works brilliantly and is a nice respite from the seriousness of every other character - I guess bar Shia LaBeouf also weirdly works in the context of the film as he's just weird.
It's sad as the film does set up some interesting characters, like Cesar, but it is not interested in exploring any of them in any depth whatsoever. It's perhaps why Aubrey Plaza and Shia LaBeouf stand out as they are wild and silly, it's clear we are not going to go into any depth with them so they become fun to watch. Both leads are just so boring and flat, it often feels like they are saying lines, like you are able to feel the words on the page and how empty those words feel, just because your characters recite Shakespeare and Marcus Arelis, and poetically yearn for an ushering in of a new society doesn’t equate to you exploring these ideas in any depth whatsoever. It’s insulting to an audience to set up some sort of discussion surrounding civilisation and modern sensibilities and squash any sort of conversation and instead be presented with the ramblings of a very privileged individual.
What's more is these ramblings also lack any substance, the movie feels void of any real ideas. On one hand you have an incredibly privileged man who believes civilisation is destroying the world and the only way to build a utopia is to destroy the world as it is and then on the other hand you have a mayor who wants to focus on helping people now - and he's painted to be the villain. I think the messaging is just very lost and feels like there's multiple ideas which are attempted to be explored and are either just abandoned or we get resolutions to ideas which were never explored in the first place. Since there's so much going on stuff just happens in the movie that's never really touched upon, like his wife, or the megalon, or the satellite but the biggest offender is that the film builds up the idea of this megalopolis and it's just built in the background like suddenly it just exists. Literally there's a few scenes of building and then suddenly a whole utopia is just there.
The biggest assumption this film makes is that society is constructed by noble men, men of wealth and in positions of power which they only obtained through their wealth. Now this sets itself up for a really interesting deconstruction of privilege should that be what Coppola was wanting to do but it's not. Instead, this is an ideology which runs right though the film without so much as an attempt to push back at this ideology. I mean you could argue that that's what Shia LeBeouf's character was trying to do, like become this figurehead for the people upset at the super wealthy, but this falls apart very quickly. The crowds he rallies, which for some reason are radicalised, turn on him as he turns out to only be interested in wealth himself. Him and Cesar both are privileged but he is this freak and Cesar is portrayed as this saviour of humanity. So why is Driver portrayed like such a beacon of hope, because he's noble in his use of wealth, his entire story is just focused on building his utopia not for some moralistic purpose but for self-serving reason. Giving this film any ounce of though makes it fall apart so quickly.
If it wasn’t evident from the fact that this film got made that it was funded by Coppola himself, the classism and privilege baked into the narrative would certainly give clues. In a way the idea that Cesar is this completely selfish person who is desperate to make his creation of this perfect utopia only he knows how to build and is clearly not for anyone other than himself could mirror the production of this film but that really isn't a compelling narrative.
It really becomes evident that the film is a complete mess once you reach the conclusion. I honestly would say that while before the conclusion it's still not a good movie I was invested and actually thought he might land on something striking, instead the ending is the most ridiculously inauthentic conclusion possibly. I guess the world would be fine if all just spoke to each other but also really listened to a mad genius man as well cause he knows what's best for the world. No interesting resolution between the ideologies of his characters instead everyone just succumbs to this man and everything is fixed. It defeats any interest in any of the characters if it ends with everyone getting on.
It's not all horrendous, as I said I do think there are small glimmers of interesting ideas which are explored but they're quickly abandoned for someone to give another monologue reciting a famous big thinker. It's also really pretty in some parts as well, but even then, there's some scenes which just look horrendous, like everything else in this film it's just so incoherent. When scene to scene your film feels like it isn't flowing, like every actor is acting in a different movie, where there's cohesive style, that's simply bad direction given. I think had this not had a name like Coppola's attached to this film it would flat out just be called a miss.
I do love when a director makes a really big swing and we get these swirling ambitious entries into auteur cinema, I was a massive fan of Bardo and really appreciated Beau is Afraid and while I respect Coppola for making something as ambitious as this it's just so disjointed and quite honestly lacklustre to really leave any lasting impression there's nothing of substance