Megalopolis ★★★★★

Released: 27th September 2024

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Starring: Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza,

As an individual who has been infatuated with Francis Ford Coppola’s audio-visual artistry through the likes of One From The Heart, Tetro all the way to Apocalypse Now and The Godfather trilogy, it was to my clear elation that Megalopolis finally found its way to the cinematic arena. A piece of artistry that has been in the Coppola pipeline for decades is some of his greatest work. To repeat, Francis Ford Coppola’s self-funded, seismic, earth-shattering Megalopolis is a sacred piece of artistic invention. A culmination of expressive, audio-visual bravado wielded with the fractured heart of human complexity, Ford Coppola’s vision of both the struggling, sapped and empty splinter of earth in the current fabric of time juxtaposed with a vision of a united, loving and wholly tender world is at the bleeding heart of Megalopolis.

Innovator, lover and architect, Cesar Catilina (played marvellously by Adam Driver), a tortured but genius artist, whose favour of and endeavour to construct a utopian future among the cracked and desolate environment of the city of New Rome, finds himself at the crux of a crucial and tentative period of human history. His debauched and conniving opposers, led by Franklyn Cicero — Giancarlo Esposito — the mayor of New Rome, Clodio Pulcher who is his cousin — played by Shia LaBeouf, and the remarkable Aubrey Plaza who leads charge as Wow Platinum, engage in hedonism and depravity whilst New Rome crumbles around them. Cesar, too, a man struggling with his relationship to his family and the moulding world around him, is also privy to elements of such hedonism.

Coppola’s lead is an entirely imperfect man, and a man truly struggling. It is when he meets socialite Julia Cicero, daughter of Franklyn Cicero, played astonishingly well by Nathalie Emmanuel, that the two begin to blossom in this world together, both as artists and human beings. Coppola beautifully incorporates their shared understanding of the intricacies of the cosmos through magical realism, most prominently in this ability to stop perceived time altogether. It is in these moments, Coppola reveals the truth behind Megalopolis. Staunchly, utterly transfixing narrative beats that utilise this visionary conceit are honestly breathtaking in scale and in emotional resonance. Cesar and Julia’s relationship serves as the backbone for Megalopolis’ narrative arc and when the film takes the pivot and time to fully invest in their relationship, the film takes off into the stratosphere.

On a formal basis, Coppola is clearly following in the footsteps of cinematic pioneers such as Abel Gance and Fritz Lang’s and their silent film work. From repeated editing reveries, triptychs, heart sinking cross-dissolves and a sound design full of crumbling rock and fallen foundations, Megalopolis is one of the most impressive and truly cinematic audio-visual pieces of work this year. This self-funded, auteurist endeavour has truly paid off for Francis Ford Coppola, but Megalopolis feels so much more than just proving a point.

A scene involving Cesar and his mother, Constance Crassus Catalina, ingeniously portrayed by Talia Shire, is a glimpse into the very foundations of Megalopolis. She states, “I went into the hospital with excruciating stomach pain…and I came out with you.” It is this very notion that Cesar does not feel enough in this world, even for his own mother, propelling him to work and believe in a utopia for others. Then combining this with love and care… well, I will not say anymore.

Megalopolis is truly a humanist force to be reckoned with. A devastating human fable of facing adversity, understanding yourself and opening up to the love that the world and the cosmos can provide.