Megalopolis: How Dare You Have A Bad Time

What a great movie! Watch this movie. But to have a good time it’s essential to know how. And why would you prefer not to have a good time? The name of the game is recognizing the artistic intention. Moreover, it’s helpful to understand why billions of people sincerely value Bollywood.

Megalopolis is Francis Ford Coppola’s latest and grandest cinematic vision. It follows Caesar Catalina (Adam Driver), a visionary genius trying to shape the world into a utopia–a cool, big idea that not enough big movies try to tackle sincerely. Also, Coppola famously liquidated $140 million of his assets to give the studio system a giant middle finger, which is a simple pleasure that shouldn’t require any training to feel.

To be clear Megalopolis might not be easy to enjoy if you like the indie art films that many cinephiles find themselves exploring in earnest. It has one particular stylistic feature that is a sin in serious, high art: it’s emotionally didactic. It tells you how to feel at every moment. It doesn’t give you subtle, subversive emotional content, which is unique for a concept-forward art film. Additionally this movie also might not be easy to enjoy if you like big-budget Hollywood blockbusters that avoid doing anything that could be described as “weird.” Seeing a big-budget art film that is both weird and emotionally didactic can be a lot. But you’ll get over it. You’ll watch it with a different part of your mind and have a good time. (More on this in a few paragraphs).

Alternatively you might think you enjoyed the emotionally didactic and weird aspects of Megalopolis by laughing during the serious parts of the movie. It’s corny and you got the joke. But I would argue you didn’t enjoy them with the artistic intention in mind. They weren’t supposed to be corny. I don’t think you got the joke since this movie doesn’t hide them behind layers of irony. Again, it’s didactic. It tells you what the funny parts are without any winking and nudging. 

Both its weirdness and on-the-nose emotional content make it very similar to a Bollywood movie, which appeals to a larger global audience than Hollywood movies do. You just need to slip into a different mindset where you allow it to tell you how to feel, rather than trying to be aware of all of the different layers of it. Megalopolis even briefly peels back the fourth wall; it does that for you. No need to do it yourself.

Some of what makes Megalopolis weird is its formalist aesthetic, which is unconventional for a big-budget Hollywood release, where classicist or neorealist aesthetics are preferred. Part of that is the visual formalism of this film, which Patrick H Willems covered beautifully. Most notable to me however was the formalist dialogue. These characters don’t speak like standard Hollywood characters do. They speak like someone trying to update Shakespearean dialogue for modern English and merely giving the monologues an audience. Empire articulated why: the dialogue is delivered with Shakespearean cadences. It reminds me of the dialogue in the Star Wars prequels, both in that it was intended to capture a formalist, almost idealized, aesthetic, while also missing the mark on executing that intention well. Nevertheless, we should be like Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) and appreciate the artist’s vision. It’s a beautiful vision for a film. 

All of this only applies if we must analyze Megalopolis at some level. More immediately, we should just have fun with the forms without trying to think about them. That montage with Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza) twirling her fingers around and waving her wrists in a mysterious, seductive, beckoning way was just fun. 

This low-filter approach I’m pointing to is almost difficult to do for a viewer accustomed to instinctively unpacking various story elements to decipher the filmic language. How can such a viewer approach a story that is best when viewed without analysis or really deep thought? Simple. You watch with your id, not your superego. You recognize that stripping back the layers of ego and superego doesn’t involve an action. In fact, it takes effort to maintain your ego and superego as filters. You’re relaxing into a place of non-judgment and non-analysis. Rather than watching with the part of you that deciphers the filmic language and wonders why certain creative decisions were made, rather than watching with the part of you that googled “formalism” earlier, you watch with the part of you that daydreams when people talk. Let your id come out and play.

In this regard, Megalopolis also reminds me of much of the work of a director with a very different style—Seijun Suzuki. Japan’s B-movie Giga Chad created films that were imagistically maximalist while telling interviewers that they were just a different kind of minimalism. But more than anything, when asked why he included certain visual or story elements, he mentioned enjoying movies that were fun, interesting and made a strong impression. “It’s nonsense to try to figure out how the images connect logically. I just shoot what I like to see.” The result is an oeuvre that asks you to strip back the layers of conscious thought and watch with your id.

Likewise, I believe much of Megalopolis shares this approach, maybe not to the chaotic and stylistic extremes of Suzuki, but in intention. Why name her Wow Platinum? Why the bizarre montages? Why that fucking dialogue and delivery? I’d imagine Coppola’s honest response might be something like Suzuki’s. There’s probably some symbolism or something there but as a viewer just let this passionate artist create a world as a labor of love, that is undeniably interesting and fun, and that makes a strong impression. 

It’s also not a surprise that Suzuki hated the commercial film industry and famously said, “I make movies that make no sense and make no money,” before being blacklisted by the Japanese film industry. Every time he made a movie, you could see it as a middle finger to the studios he was beholden to. In that regard, I think he and Coppola have another commonality in what Megalopolis represents.

Approach it with your id. Let it plunge you into a self-exploration of its imagery and bizarre associations. Only after that, analyze what those associations evoke in yourself. Megalopolis is best when viewed pre-cognitively.

Megalopolis is fun and it’s entertaining. It’s Bollywood. It’s Suzuki. It’s also Hollywood. Don’t be better than it. It represents a sincere artist’s vision, made with joy—something you don’t see very much in the era of streaming. It’s okay to trust the artist and be open to his vision. No matter how crude the immediate form of the thing is, it’s okay to see what it represents. What it could say about us. What we could be. It’s okay to be like Julia Cicero and Caesar Catalina.

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