Diva

Dir: Jean-Jacques Beineix/France/1981/117 mins/subtitles 

Lps: Frederic Andrei, Roland Bertin, Richard Bohringer


Jules, a young admirer, is mesmerised by the voice of opera singer Cynthia Hawkins. Because she refuses to make studio recordings, afraid to hear her own voice, Jules tapes her Paris concert. Guarding this tape with his life and feeling guilty for 'stealing her voice', Jules is caught up in a world of crime, vice and murder. On his tape he has a magical voice, on a tape slipped into his moped saddlebag he has a mobster boss's confession. Nothing but chaos ensues as police, mobster boss and money-hungry businessmen hunt for Jules.

"Diva is a funny, weird, romantic, chic, surreal fairy-tale..., which is not easy to describe but is unbelievably good to watch... A poetic tale of hallucinatory grace (MUFS 1985). Beineix mysteriously combines images and feelings to describe Jules' love for Cynthia Hawkins, his feelings of entrapment by the police, and his and his fear of death by the mobster. Diva is everything from police chase scenes to beautiful singing to 'Zen and the art of buttering bread'.


GLF

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