La La Land

With First Man, Damien Chazelle offers a contemplative vision of a historic American achievement that's much less flashy than his newest film Babylon.

However, early signs show that his 2022 film, Babylon, is a return to his grandiose and theatrical form, perhaps as a correction for the muted response to his quiet and unassuming left-turn of a film, First Man. Because of the film's evolved tone and narrative ambition from the rest of Chazelle's filmography, it appeared to be destined as a launching pad for the director to take a new angle in his career. The scene in which Armstrong must explain to his kids that he may not ever return from the Apollo 11 mission is hypnotic in many ways, not featuring the usual melodramatic beats of an emotionally gripping scene like this. Neil Armstrong and his fellow space travelers were merely cogs in the machine for the demands of the U.S government. It is as close to watching someone's soul, in this case, Armstrong, slowly fade away to oblivion, as he is incapable of offering his kids any assurance that he will survive. The moon landing of Apollo 11 is one of the most iconic moments in recent American history, but there is nothing celebratory about what Armstrong and his team at NASA are venturing out to do in First Man. Because of the film's deep contemplation of the validity of the mission from a historical context, Janet serves as an audience avatar. Neil Armstrong holds a trauma inside of him, the death of his two-year-old daughter from a brain tumor, that may explain his endeavors in space, but what will be accomplished for his own well-being? One of the final scenes in the film shows the astronauts in quarantine after returning from the fateful voyage to the moon after all, and a speech from John F. This lack of effortless directing is hard to escape from considering that his main characters on screen are all about people who climb uphill battles and push themselves to the absolute limit to become the next great jazz musician. In fact, if there was ever a time when the Oscar-winning director was subtle with his ideas and reserved with his tone, it was this peculiar, off-kilter biopic about Neil Armstrong ( [Ryan Gosling](https://collider.com/tag/ryan-gosling/)) and the Apollo 11 space mission to the moon. With Damien Chazelle's work, the audience can feel the proverbial blood, sweat, and tears that the young director goes through in order to execute his themes and inject the viewer with a visceral rush of energy.