A Painless Way To Say Goodbye

'TIS THE SEASON FOR REFLECTION, RESOLUTIONS, AND THE UNRELENTING TIDE OF SHORT-SIGHTED NOSTALGIA. HERE'S HOW TO MAKE SURE YOU DON'T LOOK BACK IN ANGER.

- INDRAN PARAMASIVAM

I KNEW I WOULD ENJOY Brian De Palma’s controversial masterpiece Scarface (1983) before I even watched it. I cannot say the same about Damien Chazelle’s gorgeously threaded musical dramedy La La Land (2016), a film I did not know I would love—thoroughly— until I watched it. I may have given some people the idea that I am above liking La La Land, and since this is the hour upon which we pressure-wash our sin-laden slates clean and enter the new year scrubbed and sparkling, let me be clear: I have watched La La Land more times than Scarface.

Both films perform superlatively as Rorschach blots for understanding the vast yet intimate phenomenon of human existence. Ultimately, both are strikingly similar, despite the stark differences between their subject matter and worldviews. Crucially, what draws me to both is what they imply about endings.

Granted, Tony Montana lying face down in his pool, his body a pin cushion for bullets, is a different denouement from Sebastian “Seb” Wilder and Amelia “Mia” Dolan exchanging longing looks before the curtain falls on their love with a crushing finality. But both are sobering testaments of irrevocable outcomes simply because of the events that preceded them.