"La La Land" -- Singing and Dancing through life to love

“La La Land” is a movie just like “Artist.” Both movies harken back to when Hollywood was creating stories that took us to lands that were beautiful, magical, and somewhat sad. They are popular because they are nostalgic. Because as viewers we desire to truly escape, at times, from the reality we live-in. Today, movies are not completely escapism. They take our modern lives and blow them up on the big screen. As a result, we don’t escape the reality, we continue live in the world though watching others suffer is more entertaining. However, these types of movies are not inspirational or magical. Therefore, when movies like “La La Land” comes along, without searching for it, we truly see the magic that we try to create in our lives.

Of course, there are differences. “Artist” was a movie that looked at the beauty of Silent Pictures. “La La Land” takes us back to the time when silver screens were flooded by beautiful and entertaining musicals with singing, dancing, romance, and melancholic ending. For actors, these movies were and are a pleasure to perform in. For viewers, regardless whether a movie is good or not, such movies are a pleasure to watch. In fact, “La La Land” is only second true musical this century that was created. The first was “Mamma Mia.” Both movies were popular and have been darlings during the winter award season. So, was “La La Land” a good movie?

The movie is beautiful, magical, inspirational, thought provoking, with wonderful acting, with terrific script, and, what looks like, a spot-on director. Yes, the ending is not traditional American ending. However, the movie is set in our time. The ending is very appropriate because in our lives, we are too obsessed about reaching for the stars than reaching for comfort and happiness when being with another human being.

“La La Land” is also a movie that took musical and dancing cues from different movies. Even the story line could be found in movies that were created over 30 years ago. For me, I saw similarities of certain scenes, that I associated with, from “Singin’ in the Rain”, “The Artist”, and “Umbrellas of Cherbourg”. However, these associations made movie more enjoyable and exciting to keep-on watching and enjoy it.

Damien Chazelle was able to bridge brilliantly the past and present. He connected jazzy tunes of this movie to our modern times where culture of relationships are more complex and confusing than ever before. In the end, the movie is about love and deciding between having love and happiness with another human being or find the same thing in your dreams. To have both is rare and most will fail in one or another. And all we have are the decisions we make throughout our life, and we must learn to live with those decisions the best we can because the alternative is too gruesome and tragic to think. And that what the end of the movie, the very last scene, was all about. I connected to it for very real, and I understand it all too well.

I would definitely recommend to anyone to see this movie. And after you see it, think about it, give yourself time to think, and then watch it again. Yes, it is one of those movies that will touch your heart and soul, and you can watch over and over again. Enjoy the “La La Land”: its dancing, music, cinematography, songs, and the beauty of the story that we call life that is true not just on the screen but also spills into our real life.