Movies - Diva

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	Movies - Diva

Diva is a 1981 film directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix. It is one of the first French films to let go of the realist, harsh mood of 1970s French cinema and return to a colourful, melodic style. The film made a muted debut in France in 1981, but it had huge success when a dubbed version was released in the United States of America the next year. The film was internationally acclaimed and it is now considered a cult film.

Story

Jules, a postman, has secretly and illegally recorded a concert by Cynthia Hawkins, a celebrated opera singer who has never consented to have her performances recorded, and with whom he is obsessed. He also manages to steal her dress. He also happens, unbeknown to him, to be in possession of another recording of a young prostitute exposing the whereabouts of a gang of criminals and their accomplices in the police. The prostitute drops the recording in the bag of the postman's moped moments before she is assassinated. Jules is then pursued by several parties: honest policemen, corrupted policemen and local gangsters, who want the prostitute recording, and Taiwanese gangsters who want the Diva recording. He manages to escape them thanks to a couple of his friends who save him Deus ex machina style.

Overview

The whole film is set in a bizarre, sometimes dreamlike atmosphere, flirting with the absurd and surreal. The photography, dialogue and story are in turn exquisitely beautiful, and nastily brutal. The sets are constructed with great care and symbolism, with much attention paid to the slightly surreal surroundings in which the characters perform both grittily real and strangely whimsical dialogue. A famous and influential sequence in the film features Jules on a moped fleeing pursuers through the Paris Métro.

Throughout the movie, the substituted tape acts as a MacGuffin that drives the rest of the plot.

Amongst the interesting elements of the soundtrack are the aria Ebben? Ne andrò lontana of an obscure opera, La Wally, and a pastiche of Satie's Gnossienne composed by Vladimir Cosma.

If nothing else, this movie creates a surreal mood and scenery and does not let the viewer down. It can be called a precursor to movies such as The City of Lost Children
and Amélie
(both of which had Diva's Dominique Pinon in the cast), Tim Burton's later creations, or Hideaki Anno's Shiki-Jitsu.

Casting:

Frédéric Andréi : Jules
Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez : Cynthia Hawkins
Roland Bertin : Weinstadt
Richard Bohringer
: Gorodish
Gérard Darmon : L' Antillais
Chantal Deruaz : Nadia
Jacques Fabbri : Jean Saporta
Patrick Floersheim : Zatopek
Thuy An Luu : Alba
Dominique Pinon
: Le Curé

Awards

César Award
for Best First Film : Jean-Jacques Beineix
César for best music : Vladimir Cosma
César for best photography : Philppe Rousselot
César for best soundtrack : Jean-Pierre Ruh

Category:1981 films Category:Action films Category:Cult films Category:Drama films Category:Mystery films Category:Romance films Category:French films Category:Thriller films

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Movies - Diva

Story

Overview

Casting:

Awards

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