Let’s get a couple of things out of the way. First, the terms “madman’s endeavor” and “anti-entertainment” are not to be read as disparaging comments, nor as praise. What they are, above every immediately conceivable designation, are attempts to communicate just how many different breeds of insanity Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is playing upon here.
Insanity is not to be read as a pro or con either, but a declaration of Megalopolis‘ distance from the reality (and films) that we’re familiar with. This film cannot and should not be quantified by traditional constraints of critique; questions such as “Should I go see this” or “Is it good or bad” are complete and utter dead-ends in this context. The very venture of communicating the essence of Megalopolis is an odyssey on a subatomic level.
Megalopolis stars Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina, a visionary architect with the power to stop time, and who endeavors to demolish his home metropolis of New Rome and rebuild a utopia, Megalopolis, in its place. Opposing him is New Rome’s mayor, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who wishes for the decaying city to stay as it is under his rule. Plunged in the middle of their conflict is Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), the love interest of Cesar and the daughter of Franklyn, hoping to grab life by the horns and find the meaning that lies within.
It is nigh impossible to engage with Megalopolis as one would a typical narrative feature. By traditional storytelling standards, the plot may be the single most incoherent entity to hit theaters this decade. Set pieces are tonally isolated instances of grandeur, and the relationships that the characters have with themselves and with each other rise and fall with no rhyme or reason. It is, in most all ways that matter, a faulty story.
But the thing is, Megalopolis is not designed to be engaged with as a straight story, but as a participant in the madness of humanity. To do this, it bears to know some of Megalopolis‘ production logistics; specifically, the experimental approach that Coppola reportedly used throughout the shoot, in which he allowed the actors to write completely new scenes, and made drastic, sudden changes to the script on his own, all in the middle of the production.
The disjointedness of the result speaks for itself, as it was likely intended to. One minute we’re greeted by darkly stylized and genuinely mind-blowing choreography, the next minute we’re taking in a loud, glitzy spectacle involving chariots and sex tapes, and the minute after that, we’re hearing Driver hammer his way through a philosophical monologue of varying degrees of accessibility. The incoherence was baked into these scenes in equal measure as the pronounced artistry.
Thus, Megalopolis is less a story and more of a cinematic city, bearing host to a wide variety of compact expressions rather than one, overarching identity that Megalopolis can call its own. And individually, each scene that contains one of these expressions is uniquely and decidedly stimulating. If, for example, one were to try and evaluate the performances, they would have to do so on a scene-by-scene basis. Aubrey Plaza’s quick wit and unhinged demeanor as TV presenter Wow Platinum are two individual boons that never meet, and are not supposed to. Such is also the case for Driver’s naturalism and penchant for stage-appropriate showiness, as well as Esposito’s vindictive rage and diplomacy.
The same goes for philosophical tidbits that spring up, the dazzling set pieces, and every artistic touch in between and beyond. None of these things work together, but they work for themselves immaculately – it just so happens that they all reside in Megalopolis.
All this, and yet, a theme does ultimately emerge: unwavering, transcendental belief in humanity in the face of time, anger, corruption, and other such barricades to our capacity for and faith in love. Just as Driver’s Cesar was bound for sequestered self-destruction before the love he created with Julia, so too was Cicero far removed from the concept of loss — even change — before his beloved daughter fell in love with who he deemed as his enemy.
Indeed, it wasn’t until Julia, that very conduit of love, changed both of their lives in her search for meaning that a future became possible between these two ideological juggernauts. Julia, our heroine, spends her time searching for the meaning of life in a film with no singular meaning, but one that contains multiple, largely-unconnected ideas and emotions, all of which we’re tasked with making our own meaning out of.
It’s here that the puzzle of Megalopolis, as a production and as an art piece, snaps into place. This film uses its own incoherence to force us to make meaning of the film using its highly compartmentalized scenes, just as Coppola got his actors to write their own scenes in a constantly changing script, requiring them to create meaning from a much more abstract starting point than actors usually would. Perhaps that meaning, in both cases, is fuzzy, nonsensical, frustrating to try and understand, and maybe even contradictory; all apt descriptors for Megalopolis as a traditional narrative feature, and also apt descriptors for the human condition.
And this is where that “anti-entertainment” label comes into play. Megalopolis has no interest in entertaining you, but challenging you in a way that simultaneously enables you. It gives you permission to forsake the meaning of life as your Roman Empire, and instead regard it as a canvas of possibility. Maybe that possibility is one of Megalopolis’ many artistic and philosophical snapshots. Maybe it’s a new way to regard movies that aren’t Megalopolis – movies that refuse to be evaluated by their ability to entertain, distract, or tell a traditional story. Maybe it’s a new way to regard people, all of whom harbor their own fears, comforts, vices, potential for expression, and willingness to create meaning. Maybe it’s a new way to approach life itself.
As for the “madman’s endeavor” bit, the fact that Megalopolis exists at all, and came into the world the way it did, is remarkably, off-the-rails insane, and to digest this film as a viewer is to surrender to a mode of thought that many will be unwilling or unable to adopt in the moment, if ever. As a result, Megalopolis is a film that will evoke many strong responses that perpetually clash with one another, which is maddeningly ironic considering the film itself encourages unity based on omnipotent love, curiosity, and constant engagement with one another (it’s no mistake that Coppola roped in actors on opposite sides of the political divide here). In this way, the film is a martyr, rendering itself effectively meaningless so that meaning can be made on a scale that goes beyond it.
Or maybe Coppola was just really, really high.
Whatever the case, Megalopolis should not be sought out unless you’re prepared to bring an open mind to the table, and it’s a film that will stick its landing with very few viewers, even if many more are partial to it. What’s undeniable, however, is its sensational, unprecedented, once-in-a-century power simply as a thing that exists. For that reason, it’s a must-watch. Go and see what meaning you make out of it.
Published: Sep 27, 2024 04:44 am