Bottom line is, even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready
for the big moments.No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it
does.So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are
gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that
counts. That's when you find out who you are. You'll see what I mean.
Whistler (Buffy The Vampire Slayer - 2x21 Becoming, Part One - Joss Whedon)
What makes Megalopolis so strange and, for a big-budget Hollywood film, so singular, is that, just like Vergil’s Aeneid, it is at once accretive, allusive, and idiosyncratic because Coppola is attempting something very few artists have ever done: to speak from inside the imperial organism, even as it begins to crack, and to craft a vision that is both a monument to its grandeur and a requiem for its decline.
What makes Megalopolis so strange and, for a big-budget Hollywood film, so singular, is that, just like Vergil’s Aeneid, it is at once accretive, allusive, and idiosyncratic because Coppola is attempting something very few artists have ever done: to speak from inside the imperial organism, even as it begins to crack, and to craft a vision that is both a monument to its grandeur and a requiem for its decline.