La La Land

What a joy .......and such a beautiful title. A movie I really really wish I could have caught on a large screen.

Damien Chazelle actually brings out a la la land. The visuals, the cinematography...it was quite transporting.

It is a movie about love and dreams,  and how they the two talk to each other...at times in sync and at times walking parallel lines with wonderful intersections. A movie that lives as much through movement and rhythm, as words and actions.

There's so much symbolism in the movie that you know you've got but the half of it.

It starts dramatically. A flyover in LA, bumper to bumper traffic and suddenly everyone breaks into dance to 'another day of sun'. A city of dreamers....or a dreamers destination...of possibilities....and then we slowly zoom into two of the dreamers, who are also stuck in the jam.

Mia (Emma Stone) an aspiring actress and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) a serious and committed pianist, who dreams of having his own Jazz cafe.

Each of them holding onto their dream, also living the hard life of grounding and livelihood, compromising their art, their hopes....looking for that breakthrough....and they find each other.

The movie follows the seasons to show the highs and lows in Mia and Sebastian's seemingly idyllic relationship. As I read somewhere, 'Life may not pan out the way you'd desired but true love makes it worthwhile - this message lies at the heart of Chazelle's basic but soul-stirring tale'. 

The underlying conflict between hopes, wishes and reality never seemed so real, beautifully brought out by a sequence, triggered by just a strain on the piano, where they both drift into a world that could have been. Haunting and beautiful.

The movie left me with a smile on the lips, a tear in the eye and a  flutter in the heart........all la la land stuff.