 From the very opening scene of La La Land, one relationship is established, the comparison of reality and dreams, or what you have and what you want. The film opens with the characters stuck in traffic, it's a hot and uncomfortable day, when suddenly, this nightmare turns into a dream. Everybody breaks out into song and dance in an epic scene, it's fun and is something out of an idealized world, where nothing can go wrong. That is, until the music stops. The dream comes to an end, and these characters are yet again stuck in their reality of mundane and everyday life. The next few scenes of the movie establish two main ideas. First that right now are two main protagonists, Sebastian and Mia, are stuck with what they have. But also that they dream, their life is dominated by thinking about and hoping that their dreams may come true. That comparison is shown off near perfectly, through this transition. We go from seeing fireworks after a 4 minute song and dance number, to a hard cut of this no parking sign. After the magical dream ends, these characters are back in their reality. Of course, they're not really doing anything to make these dreams become a reality. Mia goes to as many auditions as she can, but she is just one of the many faceless and aspiring actresses. Sebastian on the other hand does as many gigs as he can trying to scrape together enough money so that he may pursue his dream of opening up a jazz club, but he isn't willing to sacrifice anything to get that dream. Sacrifice is another major theme in the movie, and as will soon come to learn, a key component towards making your dream a reality. If Sebastian wants to succeed, he needs to be willing to use his musical talents to make music that he really isn't passionate about, so in the long run he can play the music he loves. Similarly, Mia is in a spot where she doesn't seem to be doing anything substantial to stand out. Instead, she just exists. The movie does a lot to show these characters being trapped wanting their dreams. It's when they're furthest away from achieving their dreams, are they the strongest? The film's director, Damien Chazelle, shows us off in a number of ways. The most obvious is with the musical numbers. These musical numbers do a lot. They exist as a way to take us out of the everyday world and transport us into a magical one. Throughout the film, Chazelle shot the various songs in a way that makes them look whimsical and artificial. The challenge was to try to do scenes that in old Hollywood musicals would have been done in a back lot to do those out in the real locations. It's also worth mentioning how these numbers are distributed. The first act takes up a little over 40% of the film's runtime and features 60% of the film's song and dance numbers. These songs are a way to show how entrenched they are in their dreams. They don't focus on reality, instead they focus on a glamorized world coming straight from the past. The musicals are all about that balance between dreams and reality and going in and out of dreams. These songs are about hope and aspirations and what they want, and they dominate the first act of the film. However, in the second act, the songs are almost non-existent, as the characters focus shifts away from what they want to how to get what they want. It's also worth mentioning how Shazelle uses color to show where these characters stand, especially with Mia. When we are introduced to her, she wears bright and dazzling colors, as do her roommates who all have similar ambitions. However, as Mia slowly starts to make her dream a reality and as the seasons go by, her clothes slowly start to lose their color, as a way to visualize her dreams starting to come true. The way in which Mia and Sebastian meet is a direct result of them pursuing their dreams. They have three interactions before they start dating, some more positive than others. They first see each other on their way into LA, the place where they can make their dreams come true. Their next few meetings are at places where Sebastian is playing music, and Mia sees him the night after a failed audition, and later at a party she goes to with her aspiring to be an actress friends. Without their dreams, they never would have met, and once they do meet and realize they're in a similar position to one another, they offer the other help so they can both succeed. I think this says a lot more than at first may appear. Deep down, they both know what they have to do to succeed, but needed someone else to show them what to do to make their dream a reality. Once they start to get to know one another and they start to care for one another, it becomes clear that they are perfect for one another. They care about each other, they care about each other's dreams, and they support one another. Quick side note here, I rarely discuss the performances of actors in this series, but I want to take a minute to compliment Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling's chemistry and performances. The success this movie wrote on them selling an honest and believable relationship, and they did that perfectly. Anyway, as I was saying, it's only through working together and encouraging each other to succeed were they able to push themselves to reach their dreams. Their paths may have diverted from their expected journey towards their dreams, but the new path they found of each other was able to push them along further than they could have ever expected. After Sebastian's encouragement, Mia decides that she shouldn't wait on others to appreciate her talent. Instead of waiting for the perfect script to come along, she is going to write the perfect script for herself. Sebastian chooses to bite the bullet, spend some time working with music that he doesn't like in order to pay off in the long run. However, these dreams start to pull them away from one another. No longer are they working together and trying to have a great time with one another, but instead trying to move their own careers forward. They both want each other to succeed, but their success leads to their relationship to fail. Be it out of jealousy of the other's career not feeling valued in the relationship or an unwillingness to cooperate the two break up. One of my favorite aspects of the movie is the comparison of these two scenes. On the left is Mia unable to meet Sebastian at the theater because she is out to dinner, and on the right is the scene where Sebastian is unable to make it to her live performance because he is stuck being photographed. Chazelle connects these scenes together. It shows us at the beginning what happens when they work together and are willing to compromise with one another, and at the end when they are stuck adamantly in their own ways, looking out only for themselves and not for each other. The film ends with both characters having achieved their dreams. Mia is the star that she always dreamed of becoming, living a busy life as a mother while also flying around the country for work. Sebastian runs the club that he always dreamed of, but it seems so hollow. Their dreams may have become a reality, but in that their dreams entered the world of reality. And as we have seen, reality is harsh. They had to sacrifice their relationship to achieve their dreams, but without one another, their dreams seem incomplete. In the final scene, we see Mia having one more dream, one in which her life went another route, that she ended up becoming successful but with Sebastian. The two are happy together and living a humble life, but that dream popped. And she is back in the harsh reality of life. This movie tells us that there are two types of dreams, ambitions and wishes. The film spends the majority of the time focusing on ambitions. Our two characters are willing to devote everything they have to their ambitions in the hope that they can achieve success. They work hard, they push back against adversity, jump the hurdles and in the end, both achieve their dreams. This is undeniably an optimistic approach to looking at ambitions, but even if it's not possible for everybody, ambitions are possible to achieve. What isn't possible to achieve are wishes, hopes for the impossible to become true, for the past to change, and wishes she might have a life with Sebastian, she won't. Because that is a dream that won't come true. Thank you so much for watching. This is a video that I've been wanting to make since I saw the movie last December. It's a pessimistic ending to a positive movie and that is just one of many ways in which it subverts the golden age musicals that inspired the movie in so many other ways. But anyway, that's a topic for another day. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to drop a like and if you haven't yet hit that subscribe button. Be sure to check out my last video in which we looked at the good, the bad, and the ugly and how it redefined the traditional Western. Thanks for watching.