Megapolis
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

AFTER a long period of artistic silence, at the age of 85, Francis Ford Coppola, the director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, is back at the Cannes Festival with a huge work, Megalopolis, a film self-funded to the tune of $120 million, that talks about philosophy, architecture, physics, love, power and politics.

Set in a futuristic city called The City of New Rome is a story keenly relevant to the politics of today. A narrative voice at the beginning of the movie tells that “All empires are destined to collapse,” and New Rome shows all the signs of an empire that is doomed. 

A Nobel-prize winning architect and scientist, Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver) has made an invention with which he is able to control time and space. He is now obsessed with a new project to build a utopian city called Megalopolis. However, the project is being resisted by the conservative and corrupted mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito).

Many sequences allude to the Roman empire as it has been portrayed in cinema: we have sequences in a colosseum recalling Ben Hur and its celebrated chariot race, references to Gladiator and Spartacus in sequences of slaves revolting against the empire, as well as to Cleopatra (a lying woman) and Agora (a lady philosopher whose mission is to save classic knowledge).

This is an impressive film with an idiosyncratic soul. The complex, dreamlike narrative structure takes the viewer on a strange journey, that is by turns alarming and funny, to portray a rich and corrupted oligarchy fighting for power. Also, Coppola’s knowledge of the history of cinema is evident, mixing allusions to the deco-films of Hollywood in the 1930s and ’40s to underground cinema, with split screens, of the 1960s.

Coppola builds a hallucinatory, surrealistic atmosphere in which, it seems, everything is possible. As the story evolves, the film becomes psychedelic and luminous. Equally remarkable is the steady hand that guides it, making it both ravishing to behold and fascinating in its quiet, dreamlike intensity. The film is potently sincere.

Yet, despite the standing ovation that greeted it in Cannes, Megalopolis has not found a distributor in the US, unlike Europe. This echoes the reaction to Apocalypse Now (1979) which Hollywood studios refused to touch, fearing a political backlash in the US.

And Megalopolis is a stronger political statement then Apocalypse Now, a fact which Coppola has emphasised incessantly: “What’s happening in America, in our republic, in our democracy, is exactly how Rome lost their republic thousands of years ago. Our politics have taken us to the point where we might lose a republic.

“Men like Donald Trump are not at the moment in charge. There is a trend toward the more neo-right, even fascist division, which is frightening... and it’s not the people who have become politicians who are going to be the answer, it’s the artists of America.

“The role of the artist is to illuminate contemporary life, to shine a light on it. To make art that does not illuminate contemporary life is like making a hamburger that has no nutrition!”

Coppola is a confirmed Democrat and a donor to the party (he declined to contribute to Obama, however) and this film, consistently interesting and full of tension and excitement, should help the uninitiated through.

Megalopolis is due for limited release in the UK later in 2024