Is Cesar’s utopian vision intact?

Francis Ford Coppola’s epic fable Megalopolis is in theaters now, but is Adam Driver’s character’s vision of utopia still intact at the end of the film?

The sci-fi drama was released in theaters on Friday (September 27) and is set in an alternate contemporary version of America, where Driver’s futuristic architect Cesar Catilina, who has the ability to pause time, clashes with the conservative mayor. of New Rome, Franklin Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito).

The film also stars Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Nathalie Emmanuel, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire and Jason Schwartzmann, and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Megalopolis has been a passion project for the director of The godfather And Apocalypse now since the early 1980s, but continues to face financial challenges. With major studios reluctant to invest, Coppola ultimately opted to finance the film himself and sell personal assets, including parts of his wine empire.

The project has been riddled with controversy, with an extra from the film saying she was “in shock” after being kissed by Coppola on set, and a trailer featuring false quotes from critics that led to a marketing consultant being fired.

It also received mixed reviews, including a somewhat hostile response at Cannes. In NME‘s two-star review of MegalopolisLou Thomas wrote: “The entire piece is so uneven that at times it seems like you are watching a toddler given free rein as an interior designer. Just because you candoesn’t mean you always should.”

Megalopolis ending explained: is Cesar’s utopian vision intact?

Main character Cesar Catilina believes he has a new bio-adaptive material, Megalon, that will change the world, and he wants to use it to build ‘Megalopolis’, a utopian city of the future.

However, his vision is fiercely opposed by Mayor Cicero, who smears Cesar by spreading information about his wife’s death and the subsequent disappearance of her body.

As the film draws to a close, New Rome is engulfed in protests, sparked by Clodio, Cesar’s embittered cousin. However, Clodio is eventually killed by the protesters, after being injured by Crassus, Cesar’s ultra-rich uncle.

Cesar gives an impassioned speech about the possibilities of a better future, winning over the crowd, and Crassus promises to financially support the construction of Cesar’s Megalopolis.

The film ends with a scene set in the already built Megalopolis, where Cicero and Cesar appear to reconcile. Cesar and his wife Julia take a break around New Year’s time and everyone around them is frozen except their new daughter.

At this climactic moment, Cesar seems to have fulfilled the utopian vision he had advocated. The corruption and greed that plagued New Rome appear to have been resolved.

The amoral billionaire Crassus has even decided that he should be seen as a good man, despite having just killed his wife Wow Platinum. However, his apparent altruism is clearly an act of self-preservation to protect his reputation.

The final moment offers a sense of hope, but also challenges the viewer to wonder what will happen next: Will Cesar’s ego spiral out of control as the benevolent creator of Megalopolis? What is the significance of his daughter not being affected by the pause in time?

The film offers a scathing reading of contemporary Western culture and the depravity of the ruling class, but it also seems to offer the audience the possibility of hope, as if asking the viewer if they still have it in them to believe that things are indeed can happen. better than them.