Francis Ford Coppola’s psychedelic last hurrah

Absent from the screens since 2012, Francis Ford Coppola is back with “Megalopolis” which has all the makings of a first film from a young man. A shame for such a veteran, but a sign of freshness and enthusiasm.

Coppola’s strange new film is a kind of prospective fiction, that is, science fiction set not too far in time. Filled with ancient references, Megalopolis has all the qualities and defects of a first feature film, while Coppola has thirty-two behind him.

The director seems to have let loose in Megalopolisa project that he has had in the pipeline for years and that he financed in particular by selling part of his vineyards. Iconoclast, Megalopolis hits theaters Wednesday, September 25.

Paradoxically, this 33^e Francis Ford Coppola’s film has the excesses of a first attempt, with its freedom of tone, its approximate style, stuffed with staging effects and cobbled-together special effects, as if he were making a luxury Roger Corman production (a B-movie specialist, with whom he started). Nourished by great thematic ambitions, Megalopolis deals with power games and time.

In the near future, the municipal elections in the city of New Rome, in the United States, pit Cesar Catalina (Adrian Driver), an idealistic artist with the power to stop time, against the ultra-conservative mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito). The latter’s daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), in love with Cesar, will have to make the choice of her life, a decision that reflects the one that the voters will make between two ideologies and societal choices.

Francis Ford Coppola takes a tangent and goes off on a tangent in a crazy film, where the dizzying ambitions of the screenplay contrast with the limited means of a B movie. The director does not take his subject seriously, while claiming its depth and the themes addressed. At 85, Coppola makes a film with a psychedelic aesthetic, dated 1970s and its theme opposing libertarians and conservatives, with love that interferes between the two, is very juvenile. Not to mention a staging with underlined effects, as if Coppola were parodying an ideal film that he would have dreamed of making at the beginning of his career, in the 1960s.

Francis Ford Coppola has fun, but loses his audience, as the project turns out to be personal (megalomaniac), while dealing with universal, ideological, political, social and societal subjects. The flaws of Megalopolis are as if claimed, at the heart of a sophistication that we detect in each shot. A paradoxical film, Megalopolis touched by this confidence that Coppola seems to make, but which risks losing spectators on the side of the road.

Gender : Drama/Science Fiction
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Actors: Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jon Voight, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jason Schwartzman, Talia Shire
Country : UNITED STATES
Duration : 2h18
Exit : Wednesday September 25
Distributer : The Pact
Synopsis: “Megalopolis” is a Roman epic set in an imaginary modern America in full decadence. The city of New Rome must absolutely change, which creates a major conflict between Caesar Catiline, a genius artist with the power to stop time, and the arch-conservative mayor Franklyn Cicero. The former dreams of an ideal utopian future while the latter remains very attached to a regressive status quo protecting greed, privilege and private militias. The mayor’s daughter and jet-setter Julia Cicero, in love with Caesar Catiline, is torn between the two men and will have to discover what seems best to her for the future of humanity.