Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Kathryn Hunter, Dustin Hoffman
Rating: (R13)
★★★★
By AMASIO JUTEL
Megalopolis (Rialto) is a Roman epic transposed into contemporary America, where a tormented visionary architect is at odds with a city’s mayor in the ideological and architectural frontier of the future. Saturated in absurdist metaphors and poetic abstractions that are at once as maddening as they are enthralling, the film is an exploration of empire, art, power and legacy.
Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) has invented a miracle building material and, with state permissions, is demolishing city blocks to make way for his Megalopolis project, while Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) endeavours to address the pressing needs of the people. Feuding over the heart and mind of a beautiful woman, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), both are entangled in smear campaigns boosted by Trumpian figures.
Seamlessly blending fantasy and reality in visually flamboyant, art-deco dreamscapes, the world maintains its Roman-steampunk aesthetic throughout. The non-naturalist performance and a general clunkiness is part of the formalist character of a visionary director who is aiming high, cutting against the grain.
Megalopolis’ brilliance lies in resistance to meaning — opting for the engagement of feeling and affect. In one moment, Cesar explains that the form Megalopolis takes is irrelevant, rather its significance lies in trying to engage with the concept.
At once agonising and enchanting, Megalopolis is bombastic and bold; oversaturated, but not impenetrable.
