Summary: Jules, a young mail courier, is an impassioned fan of Cynthia Hawkins, a legendary, and determinedly unrecorded opera star. He smuggles a tape recorder into a performance and tapes her singing. At the same time, a prostitute hides a tape recording that details the career of a French mobster in Jules' delivery bag. Dizzying chases and bizarre plot twists follow, as Jules is pursued through Paris, aided by his two eccentric friends, Gorodish and his Vietnamese mistress, Alba.
When it first came out all those many decades ago, well, four decades actually, I was fortunate enough to see Diva in the theater and enjoyed it very much. Only recently I’ve had the good fortune to catch it again on DVD and am delighted to say it’s even better than I remember. It seems to be a mixture of many styles and genres – thriller, art movie, comedy, surreal fantasy, film noir (albeit in color). But whatever the pedigree Diva is eminently, inevitably French. Indeed I see it as a kind of Frenchified Fellini, especially suggesting Roma and in particular the chase scene which recalls the last scene in Roma with all those motorcycles in their va-va-voom vroom glory. By the way, the DVD transfer looks like a million dollars, which further emphasizes Diva’s modern look and feel. Likewise, Diva’s slyly implied critique of commodified consumer culture seems more on the money today that when the film originally appeared.
Wilhelminia Wiggins Fernandez is terrific in the title role. I’m a bit of a classical music – but not necessarily opera – buff and I don’t know much about Miss Fernandez’s subsequent career, as an opera singer or actress. In any case she’s just perfect here: her vocal timbre strikes me as very Callas-like – now there’s a lady who knew a little about being a diva. And at least in her public appearances, whether in recital or being interviewed by pesky reporters, title character Cynthia Hawkins, played by Miss Fernandez, seems to be channeling much of the Callas polish and hauteur. Indeed the film’s signature tune "Ebben? Ne andrò lontana" from Catalani’s opera La Wally, sung so expressively by Miss Fernandez, was a Callas specialty.
Diva is a wild ride of textures, images and moods, and who cares if the plot’s a little shaky? Quite a bit shaky actually. Indeed if there ever was a film in which style triumphs over substance, this is it. But Diva has other merits. Best of all perhaps is the assortment of grifters, low-lifes, prostitutes, corrupt cops, good cops, aesthetes, journalists, bootleggers and various hangers on that pop up throughout, and of course we can’t forget our nominal hero Jules. But among the supporting cast and bit players pride of place must go to the drug cartel’s brutal, if slightly incompetent, assassins L’Antillais and Le Curé, two of the sleaziest characters you’ll ever see anywhere.
Diva then is absolutely sui generis. I can’t think of anything like it, before or since. However, for all the film’s exuberant panache and historical significance, the one downside is that Diva’s director Jean-Jacques Beineix never quite found his voice so harmoniously again.
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