Diva

8/16/2016

This was outstanding. Opera could very much be a metaphor for film to me, and the great way that opera dominates the life of addict Jules here could easily apply to me in my approach to film, and ANY remarkable actress of today. For example, if I could travel back in time, I would easily have felt this way about Garbo, who is my favourite actress ever... Probably the best thing Luc Besson ever laid his hands on...

12/5/2020

Despite the ridiculous premise, namely the idea of Taiwanese gangster trying to get a hold of a bootleg recording of an opera singer (to blackmail her to signing a contract with them), the movie is better than I thought it would be going in. There are a couple big downsides that keeps me from giving it a higher rating. One is that this opera singer (Cynthia) finds solace with a young postman (Jules) who is pretty much a stalker (who stole her dress after a performance). The other bigger issue, is one dubious hero is a child predator who has a girl, easily only 13-14 years old, living with him. They don't explicitly show a sexual relationship but it's implied. I know this is France in the early 80s, just made me uncomfortable. Still, some decent scenes, one a chase through Paris and t

3/14/2024

**A very experimental film in terms of visuals and aesthetics, but one that disappoints us due to the poor conception of the characters and the lack of harmonization of the plot.** This film harmoniously brings together two arts that I greatly value: cinema, of course, and opera, which for me is the most complete, challenging and versatile stage art that exists. Although the film is not about opera and is far from perfect, it is delightful to hear Wilhelmenia Fernandez's melodious voice. Unfortunately, the script could have been better: there are a number of rough edges that should have been polished. Jean-Jacques Beineix gives us a stylized work, with notes of artistic quality, however, the story he tells us has problems: it all starts with a fan's curious obsession with his favorit

8/9/2025

That fact that I could listen to the “Ebben? Ne andrò lontana” aria from “La Wally” all day helps gets this off to a cracking start, and then we have a young fan in the form of moped postie “Jules” (Frédéric Andréi) - a lad with a distinctly Jean-Pierre Aumont look to him, who manages to make a sneaky recording. Why sneaky? Well that’s because the singer, “Cynthia Hawkins” (Wilhelmina Fernandez) hates recordings and so has never made a record. The star-struck “Jules” goes backstage after the performance for an autograph, has a quick chat with her before managing to steal her silk gown and heading back to his apartment in a derelict old garage. Here he has some state of the art audio equipment that powerfully reproduces the beauty of her singing. What he doesn’t know, though, is that an alt