«La La Land», a musical masterpiece

Cinema screens are currently showing a film that leaves no one indifferent, and which can even represent a single episode in a lifetime. La La Land, a musical, to be sure, but also an enchanting and existential musical masterpiece.

First and foremost, a musical masterpiece. In this feature film directed by Damien Chazelle, music is not merely a soundscape added to the rest of the film—just one feature among many—but rather its central theme. Both object and subject, the music of Justin Hurwitz embodies the very essence of La La Land. Music is no longer an afterthought in the film; rather, the film itself becomes an extension of the music. The two protagonists, Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), recede into the background and exist solely to serve as a true tribute to jazz—a tribute that, at its core, Boris Bian had succeeded in achieving in literature and that Damien Chazelle has now achieved in film. Surrealism is another common thread between these two geniuses.

An enchanting masterpiece. If only for the musical dimension we've just been talking about. The song City of stars and the Mia & Sebastian's Theme They dispel the notion that good music isn’t being made anymore. Perhaps we simply have to look harder than before, given how vast and diverse the selection is. Here, however, such exceptional music—combined with such breathtaking images and colors (a mauve twilight, a flight among the stars, a Parisian crypt)—cannot help but have an enchanting effect on the audience. The very title of the film evokes both the setting of Los Angeles (L.A.) and a wonderful world («to be in La La Land» meaning «to be in one’s own world»), where one finds one’s voice.

An existential masterpiece, at last. Because this magic, precisely, only takes on its full meaning when it interacts with reality, with human existence. Set against the backdrop of a joyful and utterly euphoric musical, the film actually offers a serious and profound reflection. Through Mia and Sebastian—and above all through this sublimation of jazz and music in general—the film’s message aims at only one thing: that melancholy so familiar to modern man, torn between the desire for fame and the desire for happiness, between professional ambition and passionate love. In short, between the call of art and that of love.

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