AshleyReviewsStuff’s review published on Letterboxd:
I think watching Singin In The Rain (the main inspiration for La La Land) has made me able to respect the film alot more for it's creativity! The inspiration is clear but I love how Chezelle has took Singin In The Rain and used the techniques from Singin In The Rain to make his own meanings! I think the more obvious inspiration was The Waste Of A Lovely Night song and how it spirals into a dance segment like alot of the songs do in Singin In The Rain and I love how he's kept alot of the physical comedy in that part which is what I loved in Singin The Rain! I like how Ryan Gosling does the spiny thing with the street lamp that Gene Kelly iconically did in Singin In The Rain but I love the contrast of the 2 uses as Gene Kelly was singing Singin In The Rain which was very optimistic and about love while Ryan Gosling is sing Waste Of A Lovely Night which was more pessimistic and about how he's not in love! I also love how the "Song and Dance" part of Singin In The Rain inspired the heartbreaking dream sequence ending and how again, Damien Chezelle was able to take clear inspiration and adapt it to his own film and create his own meaning and have it be equally as iconic!
I also love the use of colour in the film and how each colour has different meanings. Red represents dreams and I love how they have chose red as red is associated with ambition which makes sense with dreams but red also has connotations with scary things which following your dreams are scary because you can't guarente that you'll succeed. Blue represents the push backs from those dreams which makes sense because blue is associated with sadness and I particularly love how this is used! My favourite example of blue and red comes from the first scene we see Mia in the cafe she works at, a actress woman comes in with a red dress which is exactly who Mia wants to be but in between Mia and the actress is the blue counter which shows the viewer that the cafe is what is pushing Mia back. Yellow represents when a major change is about to happen we see yellow when Mia and Sebastian sing Waste Of A Lovely night which shows a change for the both of them as they'd be seeing each other more often and more intimately, also when Keith shows up and invites Sebastian to his band. Purple (or violate) represents Mia's and Sebastian's relationship which I find interesting that blue and red make purple which shows that they could be doing the right thing by being together but at the same time the relationship could be pushing them away from their dreams, we mostly see purple in the Summer Montage and The Waste Of A Lovely Night song. I find it so interesting how the film ends with close ups of Mia's and Sebastian's faces lit up with purple lighting as if they are accepting that the relationship needed to end. Lastly, we have green which represents the peak moments of Mia's and Sebastian's relationship like when Mia leaves that guy to watch the film with Seb she is wearing a green dress and when they are dueting City Of Stars, they are in front of green curtains which makes it more shocking as a viewer when they are having the big argument in front of those exact green curtains!
Anyways, in my last review I pointed shakey cam as a critic and I am going to take the L there because I have realised on this rewatch that the point they used shakey cam was at the argument so the shakey cam is to show how shakey their relationship is at that point of the story!
I love this film, I love how I keep finding new things to enjoy in this film, I love how much this movie has inspired my own work! While yes, I still don't think this movie is the best movie ever made, that has to be the Lego Movie! I realise there was a reason why I had this as number one for a year because it kinda deserves that title!
