In a futuristic New York known as New Rome, visionary architect Cesar Catilina dreams of building "Megalopolis," a utopian city that redefines society’s limits. Opposing him is the corrupt Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who clings to power and profit. Between them stands Julia, the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar forces her to choose between loyalty, ambition, and the fate of humanity.
It is a tale told by an idiot... Hey look Francis Ford Coppola I can quote Shakespeare too! That being said Megalopolis is not "sound and fury signifying nothing" it's signifies something however it's incredibly hollow. My review for Megalopolis has been bubbling away at the back of my brain for some time now as I delicately tried to explain what this film is. I have seen it twice once at the cinema and once at a friend's house. Please take my word for this you do not need to see this movie. No matter how many different ways you see it described it is going to sound into more interesting than it actually is. It is a slog and the pretentious one at that. As a filmic experience it is jumbled jumps all over the place offers plot lines then resolves them almost immediately so nothing has any consequence whatsoever. There isn't a narrative through line as such, other than Adam driver wanting to build Megalopolis out of a miracle substance called Megalon. What this ultimately is is
Holy shit this is so bad. Watching this feels like being confronted with a 100 million dollar conquest to waste your time in the most annoying way possible. Only the ultimate blood sacrifice can restore Francis Ford's dignity. It's futile to engage in this film's theoretical idiosyncrasies. One must reject the meta premise: as Mark Fisher has put it, it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism; Francis Ford has managed to waste 40 years of his life to come up with a "radically" new society and all it has to offer are shiny airport escalators?? I couldn't but think of the old Renaissance masters, who often painted commissioned work. On the other hand we have this self-financed - free - abomination. Perhaps art is indeed most free when it has to subvert and negate ideological guardrails? Devoid of any constraints this film just presents incoherent chaos. Francis Ford's film is a testament to hopelessness. Can we not at least imagine a shred of negatio
