Megalopolis is the latest major film by New Hollywood icon, Francis Ford Coppola, distributed by his company American Zoetrope. This is the man behind Apocalypse Now, The Godfather trilogy, The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, etc. And the marketing appeared to promise an artistic, visually unique motion picture event. There was no way I was going to miss this in the theater.
Minor Spoilers
It is perhaps one of the biggest, most elaborate filmmaking endeavors of Coppola’s long career. Which is saying something, when you consider this is the guy who nearly drove himself insane and suicidal trying to make his magnum opus, Apocalypse Now. Apparently, Megalopolis is a project he had in mind before he was working on that. Which means Coppola has been waiting to shoot this even longer than James Cameron waited to make Avatar.
So… was it worth the wait? Is it another notch on Coppola’s belt of revered cinema?
I don’t think so, personally.
Even describing this film is a bit of a struggle.
The opening tells us it’s “a fable.” It’s like a partially satirical, mostly expressionist, operatic, retrofuturistic sci-fi/fantasy. The story is loosely based on certain facets of the fall of the Roman Empire, while also being a bit of an allegory for modern American culture (late 20th Century to early 21st Century, I guess) and how it has come to resemble the Roman Empire before it fell.
Taking place in the United States’ greatest city, New Rome, this fable centers around Cesar Catalina, a brilliant and eccentric architect who won the Nobel Prize for creating a wondrous building material called Megalon. Obsessed with ushering in a brighter future, Cesar wants to use Megalon to build a utopia within New Rome, but he is challenged by his nemesis Mayor Cicero, his scheming cousin Clodio Pulcher and his former mistress, a vampy TV personality named Wow Platinum. He’s also challenged in a different way by Cicero’s daughter, Julia, a socialite and admirer who discovers that Cesar has the secret ability to stop and start time at will. This is all set against the backdrop of a society where the people are sharply divided between overindulged patrician families and the impoverished lower class.
It is quite grand and ambitious, even for a man who has made his share of grand and ambitious movies.
It’s also messy. Bordering on incoherent, at times.
I had a feeling I was in for a bumpy ride when Cesar Catalina's big intro was a public recitation of Hamlet's "to be or not to be" speech as he gyrates around on a catwalk. Many scenes, regardless of the narrative, have that vibe of pompous scenery-chewing. Because it's so unashamedly over the top, the film's funnier moments tend to work far more than its dramatic (or melodramatic) ones. Still, whether the tone is one of seriousness or levity, most of Megalopolis falls kind of flat. Maybe parts of it would have landed better if I were more read up on Ancient Roman history, maybe not. While I tried to remind myself as I was watching that it labels itself as a fable, I still struggled to connect with this film or go with its flow.
And there is a flow to Megalopolis, manic and flighty though it is. It was made in an experimental style and that likely led to some of its more unique elements, but it's also probably why the movie is so all over the place with abrupt editing and bizarre tangents. Well, that along with the fact that Coppola was apparently being a bit of an insufferable prima donna behind the scenes.
Still, I'm hesitant to come down on this movie too hard, since it's evident that a crazy amount of artistic talent and risk went into the making of it; even some that didn't make the final cut. This is not even talking about the actors or Coppola – who sold some of his famous wineries in order to finance Megalopolis – but also the people behind the production design, the animation, the choreography, the sound mixing, the cinematography, the costuming and more. It's a very rich and colorful film. It's lively.
At the same time, it feels too shallow and muddled for a film that clearly wants to be seen as something meaningful and visionary. It's so jacked up on style that it leaves very little room for the substance it tries to convey to the audience. This is meant to be, among other things, Coppola's love letter to artistic expression. Cesar's character and motives could perhaps be seen as a reflection of the director's own passions and desire for a future where creativity, love and hope truly make the world a better place.
But all that pie-in-the-sky Ayn Randian championing of art and beauty is crudely undermined by the masturbatory nature of its presentation. And how that comes off as almost playfully deliberate. And I won't even get into the film's politics, if it has any; Coppola clearly makes political allusions, both ancient and contemporary, but has also stated it is "above politics."
I feel like it's one of those situations when the artist reveals maybe a bit too much of themselves in their work. In Coppola's case, his perfectionism and flightiness. This was a big complaint from many people he worked with on this film, and it shows in the finished product. Many scenes and developments just sort of happen, even as the hazy cast of characters straddle the line of what appears to be a plot. In the middle of the film, most of the city gets destroyed by a fallen Russian satellite and it's portrayed in such an artsy way that I barely realized it even happened. Cesar's power to control time is the film's hook, but it barely comes up, is treated symbolically and the plot would be virtually no different if it were cut out. Dustin Hoffman appears in multiple scenes for maybe two minutes of screentime as a guy named Nush Berman.
Initially, the movie reminded me a lot of my first reaction to Southland Tales, the divisive passion project of Donnie Darko creator Richard Kelly and a movie I still have a complex relationship with. But that was meant to be puzzling and convoluted in a lot of ways, and now I think Megalopolis actually reminds me more of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, by Coppola's fellow auteur buddy George Lucas. Both in its slapdash creation and its often stilted delivery as a film for people to watch.
Yet, like the Star Wars prequels and Southland Tales, there are aspects of Megalopolis worth applauding. Like I said, there's a lot of humorous, off the wall shit in this. It has a deep lushness and color flair similar to some of Coppola's most beloved movies. While I find most of the movie's ideas pretentious, I do like the idea that Coppola intends it not to be a clear-cut example of utopia but as a commentary and exploration of utopian concepts in the face of a stagnating society. And that he once again explores the concept of time and its elusiveness, like he did in Rumble Fish.
Much of the film is also elevated by the actors onscreen. Shia LaBeouf's performance reminded me of the kind of unhinged roles Gary Oldman would take in the '90s. Surprisingly, Jon Voight's creepy and dotty old billionaire Crassus has one of the more entertaining subplots. Laurence Fishburne's epic voice lends gravitas to a mostly lackluster narration. There's some fun small roles for Coppola's sister, Talia Shire (as Cesar Catalina's capricious mother), and her son, Jason Schwartzman. And, of course, you have people like Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito and Aubrey Plaza, who all can usually make the most out of whatever material they're working with. Plaza, in particular, gets to shine as Wow Platinum evolves from a jaded ex to a power mad femme fatale. She's probably the film's main highlight.
Quotes:
Wow Platinum: "You're anal as hell, Cesar. I, on the other hand, am oral as hell."
Cesar Catalina: "You find me cruel, selfish and unfeeling? I am. I work without caring what happens to either of us. So go back to da cluuub, bear it all and stalk the kind of people you enjoy."
Julia Cicero: "Fine! I will."
Cesar: "Come back when you have more time!"
Cesar: "Is this society, is this where we're living, the only one that's available to us?"
Cesar: "Ralph Waldo Emerson said the end of the human race will be that we will eventually die of civilization. But trend is not destiny."
Hamilton Crassus III: "What do you think of this boner I got?"
Megalopolis is trying to be a lot of things, but I’m ultimately not sure what exactly it is. It’s saying a lot of things, but I don’t really know what it’s trying to say. I can respect the effort and would like to reassess it later on, but for now all I know is I was not feeling this. So there you have it. A bloated and confused review for a bloated and confused movie. Two and a half out of five flower petal cities.
Thank you so much for reviewing this, Logan! I really appreciate that you didn't damn it entirely--some reviewers have gone for a hard pan rather than an actual consideration of the film.
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely going to stream this when it's available to do so, and I have the feeling I won't finish it. Not because it sounds horrible, but because it sounds both flawed and long.
On the other hand, it also sounds so very weird that maybe I'll get sucked in.
Some reviewers don't know how to consider a film that doesn't meet expectations, so a hard pan is all they got. Where a story goes right is just as meaningful as where it goes wrong, in my opinion.
DeleteNot sure how you'll feel about this one. I imagine it will eventually become some kind of oddball cult film, but who's to say? For now, I think it was a little unique but mostly a big misfire.
In any case, thank you for the comment, Josie.
I was planning to see this with a friend but it vanished from our local theatres after only one week. I'd rather watch an ambitious mess than a film that doesn't try to be anything more than an amusing but forgettable use of two hours. And as flawed as this project apparently is, it was clearly important to Coppola to get the film made.
ReplyDeleteMagritte, I'm with you as far as being more accepting of something that's messy and ambitious over something that's clean and disposable. And I'm usually the type to love a love-it-or-hate-it movie. This one just was not doing it for me.
DeleteI also want to thank Logan for a thorough review. One thing I haven't heard mentioned is the incredible inclusion of cinematic styles. There's 1920's b&w German expressionism, there's a ode to the visual styles of modern science fiction, there's even a theater stage look that all of which begs the viewer to ask the question WHY? How is this moving this allegory forward. This feels like a film classes terrible assignment of breaking down each element and its influence. There'd be a very dense and unfun book to lay out the myriad of elements that were pulled together. The movie just felt like there was dozens of directors and the editors were too emotional appropriately editing their precious elements. Normally I like visually cinematic films that are ambitious, but this is the bad exception. And often, some films age gracefully and gain a following. I'm not so sure I want to get to know the people of the future who might find this a diamond in the rough.
ReplyDelete