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There were so many tales, some salacious, some plain gossipy, but mostly the kind the accompany the long-in-the-making passion project of a great director, that ‘Megalopolis’ came marching into Cannes with, that you knew going in that it was never going to be just a film.
The swarm of psst-did-you-know-shock-and-awe stories was right. At 83, 21th century cinema maven Francis Ford Coppola has come up with a creation that is unlike anything he has done: it’s more a collection of ideas, and grand guignol themes, and scenes overloaded with sensory excess melded with a strong sense of loss and longing. You are left wondering how much of ‘Megalopolis’ can safely be derived from the word megalomania: it is a monumental mess, but it is also a pean to the past, a lament of the present, and a hope for the future, and it is a film I couldn’t take my eyes off.
Coppola, who spent his own money making the movie which could well be the last of a storied career — can anyone claim to be a cinephile without having seen the ‘Godfather’ trilogy — also gathers together a notable cast which has clearly got the memo to act in this version of New York-recast-as-Rome as old-time Romans have done.
Adam Driver plays Cesar Catilina, an engineer, entrepreneur and a sensualist driven by memories of his wife and a desire to create an Utopia. Giancarlo Esposito is Franklyn Cicero, the mayor of this once-great-city, now falling to rack and ruin. Nathalie Emmanuel is Julia Cicero, his daughter, a whip-smart, gorgeous creature who wants to do something more than attend Bacchanalias: this is Rome, so we get orgiastic parties, figures on couches, togged out in togas, eating grapes (yes, you spot this very scene and smile) and a great deal of all-round loucheness, with Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voigh, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Lawrence Fishburne, Dustin Hoffman coming and going.
Driver does a great job as the visionary Howard Roark-like architect figure who is up against Esposito’s mayor who wants to cling on his notions of the past. Voight plays a fabulously wealthy banker, being hunted by his scheming wife and nephew. Everyone spends their time dressing up (some of the jewelry on display, especially on Julia, is stunning), and dressing down, and once in a while participating in a powerful scene which is clearly about something.
Which is exactly the problem here. In his zeal to do something big, Coppola forgets to keep things cohesive; there is basically no plot. But there’s no dearth of passion in this Megalopolis, and the plea to us, the humans who inhabit the planet, to be kind and compassionate, cuts through all the noise and the confusion. In parts, very occasionally, you get the kind of soaring Shakespearean feeling that the very best dramas have, and even though no one actually spouts this famous speech, you can feel the director’s exhortation to friends-Romans-countrymen.
And I’m happy to lend it my ear.
***
Cannes regular Andrea Arnold returns to the Competition section with ‘Birds’, a film which has a whole bunch of people trying to grow up, with varying degrees of success. Bug, played by Barry Keoghan, experienced fatherhood at 14, and has never really understood the job description. At 12, his daughter Bailey (Nykiya Adams) feels older than him in the way she tries to take care of her pressing matters arising from Bug’s various careless relationships, one of which appears to be fructifying into marriage.
Bailey, who appears to have the strongest connection with feathery creatures, gets a lift when a stranger is one of those movie odd-bods that Franz Rogowski plays so well: Bird wears a tartan skirt, has a strange accent, and is in search of his roots. He flits about, taking his name very seriously indeed, and is to be found perched on roofs almost as if is waiting to take off. Adams is excellent, and Rogowski as expected; it is Keoghan as the too-young dad who steals the show.
The big reveal in the climax is wrapped within the title, and you pretty much know the way this one will fly, but still, troubled youngsters finding their wings is always a good sight.
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