By TATIANA DIAZ
Staff writer
Musicals taught me that some emotion is so powerful that it can’t be put into mere words, it must be sung. Some love is so overwhelming that you just have to move your feet. With a family that loved classic films, I remember being awed by Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, thinking they were as cool as anyone in movie history. Characters in musicals not only understood love differently than those in traditional films but they turned that understanding into the art of dancing, singing, and transcending mere dialogue to become something greater, something purer, something closer to true romance. We’ve had some musicals since the era of Rogers and Astaire, but few have tried to recapture that sense of fluid, magical thinking in which characters communicate with their bodies as much, maybe even more, than they do with their voices. One of many remarkable things about Damien Chazelle’s “La La Land” is how much energy and time it devotes to movement and music, not just lyrics. The modern movie musicals, so often based on Broadway shows, have focused heavily on songs that further plot. In Chazelle’s vision, choreography matters, and a simple piano refrain can have more power than a lyric. This is a beautiful film about love and dreams, and how the two impact each other. Los Angeles is filled with dreamers, and sometimes it takes a partner to make your dream come true.
“La La Land” opens with a bit of a fake-out in that it’s a large ensemble number of a variety that we won’t really see again in the movie. Cars are stuck in the notoriously awful L.A. traffic when the drivers decide to break into a song called “Another Day of Sun” a bit about how each day brings new hope for these young wannabe artists jumping out of the cars and dancing on the freeway. Instantly, Chazelle’s direction and the dance choreography feel different. Here, and throughout the film, he works in long, unbroken takes. You can not only see the dance moves, but you can see the dancer’s entire body when he or she performs them. And after the chorus-like introduction to a city of dreamers, we meet two such sun-gazers: pianist Sebastian( Ryan Gosling) and actress Mia( Emma Stone). Like any good musical, the two have a few false starts and playfully mock each other’s flaws in their first scenes. But we know where this is headed and Gosling & Stone have the chemistry to make us long for them to get together.