Damien Chazelle
Whiplash

You see the final result on television, a spectacular victory, with the crowd cheering and you think: damn, how much I wish I were in his place. You can't see what's behind it and you don't realize that having an edge can also be worse than a damnation, a curse, a jinx that can ruin your life. Genetics may have given you a couple of tons of it, I mean talent, to emerge from the masses with negligible ease, almost ridiculously, but to reach the top and stay there for a while, "genius" is not enough. You need to provoke that talent as if it were a person, spur it, cultivate it, and help it grow daily to try to raise the level by force of kicks. In a couple of words, you have to sweat blood. And history, in every field, is full of incredibly talented people, child prodigies seen as destined, who crashed against a wall when they realized they weren't the only ones with that damnation and weren't strong enough to withstand the impact of such a grueling competition. Some felt like failures because, despite having an excellent initial hand, they ended up in anonymity along with the masses.

A missed right of way while holding the steering wheel with one hand and shouting into the phone's microphone with the other, asking to wait just two more minutes. A final violent rev and then the car flips and contorts: it seems to take on a life of its own like a hand that suddenly clenches to delicately brush with its metal, various bruises, perhaps a fracture and some splashes of blood, the young driver. He crawls out in shock but immediately goes back in to grab the only thing that matters at that precise moment: with the set of drumsticks in hand, he runs, limping awkwardly and crooked towards the theater.

Andrew is not a particularly likable guy; he doesn't have many friends and it could not be otherwise because he is competitive to the nth degree, he is ambitious and has a goal that blinds, consumes, and obsesses him. Terrence, a music teacher at a prestigious jazz institute, is a son of a bitch. He glimpses in Andrew an enormous raw talent and targets him, squeezes him like a citrus fruit. His life is drained of the superfluous and nothing remains but obsessive rhythms to beat with maniacal precision, not even the skin on his fingers remains, skinned by continuously hitting for hours.

"Whiplash" has been described as a kind of "Full Metal Jacket" in musical form; it's an exaggerated comparison and yet, if we only refer to the structure of the first act of Kubrick's work, it's not sacrilegious. With its excesses, the film works because the director, Damien Chazelle, managed to effectively render the continuous clash, even physical, between the two protagonists who deeply hate each other and yet cannot do without each other. Andrew needs his teacher because he understands he's the only one with the skill and temper to help him make the ultimate leap. Terrence is close to retirement: all his life he has futilely sought a new Charlie Parker for jazz. He knows that he won't have another Andrew in his hands and hits him with all the force he has to see if he has the temper and the backbone strong enough to withstand the tremendous shock.

The cinematography is of great quality, characterized by shots that are almost always very tight, giving the viewer the sensation of being inside the orchestra. We sit comfortably and almost sweat from the effort expended due to how perfect the images are and how meticulously crafted the sound is (I'm not just referring to the music but also the noises that make the scenes hyper-realistic), which rightly earned an award. Thanks to the quality of the cast, the compelling and solid plot, the film manages to sustain very long scenes of pure jazz: a genre that is not exactly commercial.