Oscar fever: Day of dreamers, romantics : The Tribune India

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Oscar fever: Day of dreamers, romantics

The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, will honour the best films of 2016 and will take place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California, on Feb 26.

Oscar fever: Day of dreamers, romantics


By Navnee Likhi

The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, will honour the best films of 2016 and will take place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California, on Feb 26. The most talked-about movie this year is La La Land. With many accolades and awards, the movie is a wow with the cinema buffs. Directed by American filmmaker Damien Chazelle, it is a modern take on the classic Hollywood romance abounding in spectacular song and dance numbers. 

La La Land is a story of conflict and compromises involving two young aspirants. They support each other in pursuing their dreams and fall in love. Even if not being committed for life to each other, the fondness of the moments they shared together remain with them, and more so with the viewers.

Mia and Sebastian struggle at Los Angeles, known as the city of dreams. Mia is an aspiring actress who serves lattes at Warner Brothers studio to movie stars in between auditions. Sebastian is a dedicated jazz musician, who plays piano gigs in dingy bars. 

The movie unfolds with one extraordinary sequence set in the middle of morning-time traffic jam, along the vast stretch of LA freeway. The passengers are on their way to work. One passenger in a yellow polka begins to sing in upbeat mood, gets out of the car and breaks into dance. Other passengers, too, join in, fusing into a chorus Another day of Sun. Mia and Sebastian glance at each other. 

Sometime later, as they meet, both begin to see similarities in each other. Mia is tired of going to worthless auditions, one in which the producer doesn’t even look up from his phone. Sebastian, on the other hand, holds on to playing an ideal version of jazz. He wants to open his own jazz club. He is fired from his job after he refuses to stick to the playlist. 

One day, Sebastian finds Mia at work and decides to take her out to a jazz bar. Mia opens up to him about her passion for acting in films. They both warm up to each other by singing a song, City of stars. After more failed auditions, Mia decides, at Sebastian’s suggestion, to write a personal style-actress play. The two decide to live together. Meanwhile, Sebastian accepts his friend’s offer to be a keyboardist in his jazz band. Though he is dismayed over the band’s pop-oriented style, he decides to sign with them. 

On the opening night of her play, Sebastian fails to show up and after hearing dismissive comments about her show, feeling hurt, she breaks up with Sebastian, leaves LA and moves back home to Nevada. 

After a few years, Mia achieves success as an actress and marries another man and is blessed with a daughter. One night as the two decide to go out, they make a detour, due to heavy traffic jam, and decide to visit a jazz bar. As they enter, Mia notices Seb’s logo that she had designed when they lived together. She realizes it was the jazz club he had always dreamt of owning. 

Sebastian begins to play, prompting an extended dream sequence: he imagines what their relationship would have been had they been together. As the song ends and Mia leaves with her husband, she gives Sebastian one last knowing look and a smile — nostalgic of their past, yet happy over each other’s success. 

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