Forty-four years after its release, ‘Diva’ continues to spark conversation and debate among critics and cinephiles, and StudioCanal’s stunning 4K UHD restoration and re-release will hopefully see a whole new generation join that debate.
The 1980s and early ’90s saw the emergence of a new movement in French cinema, known as Cinéma du Look. This new movement would embrace spectacle, youth culture, and striking visuals and sound while equally reflecting the new economic realities and cultural changes in France under François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac. Cinéma du Look was born from directors who were raised on the French New Wave, and in many ways, it shares similarities; however, it was also rebellious and often wild in its artistic vision.
Its architects, Jean-Jacques Beineix, Luc Besson, and Leos Carax, were interested in the changing cultural identity of France and Europe as the 1970s drew to a close. It was a world where TV was expanding, commercials had become short films, Music TV revolutionised the music production landscape, and the VCR ushered in a new era of ‘home cinema.’
Besson, Beineix, and Carax would create brash, bold, colourful movies designed for the big screen, unafraid to explore the darker corners of social change and the alienation of youth, while embracing visions of the cultural future, driven by spectacle, performance, and sound. However, the film that kick-started Cinéma du Look was roundly panned by all but a few critics. Diva was writer and director Jean-Jacques Beineix’s first feature-length film, and despite box office disappointment, it was about to transform French cinema for over a decade to come.
Forty-four years after its premiere, StudioCanal have immaculately restored Diva for a 4K UHD release, and it’s a sight to behold. Meticulously restored from the original 35mm print, Diva, adapted by Beineix from Daniel Odier’s novella, isn’t just a landmark in French cinema; it’s a fascinating and visually entrancing, and reactionary, slice of early 80s filmmaking centred around art, technology, and a rapidly changing culture. Bold, enticing and somewhat frustrating in equal measure, Diva is playful yet solemn, modern yet nostalgic and thrilling yet melancholy; it’s a neo-noir thriller that defies simple labels.
Jules, played wonderfully by a young Frédéric Andréi, is an opera-loving young postal worker who is obsessed and entranced by the American diva Cynthia Hawkins (Wilhelmenia Fernandez). Hawkin’s refuses to record any of her performances, believing that pure art is to be experienced live, not on vinyl or tape. But Jules wants to take Hawkin’s voice back to his grimy yet colourful garage home in underground Paris. So Jules sneaks into her Paris performance with his treasured recording gear and creates a high-quality bootleg tape of her concert. Meanwhile, across the city, two police officers are investigating an international slavery ring surrounded by mystery and violence, where those daring to speak out are quickly ‘dealt with’ by two henchmen (Dominique Pinon and Gérard Darmon).
Jules’ recording of Hawkins is unique and rare, and it’s not long before he befriends a wild and mysterious girl named Alba (Thuy An Luu), who lives with an avant-garde artist, Serge Gorodish (Richard Bohringer), who chain-smokes his way through the movie. Serge is interested in Jules’ recording, as are two strange Taiwanese businessmen who stalk anyone associated with the bootleg tape. Sounds complicated, right? Well, it’s about to become even more knotty for our young hero, Jules.
As he drives his scooter around his usual Paris postal route, a woman stumbles from a metro station pursued by the two henchmen, who claim to be police, and, unknown to Jules, the woman slips a cassette into his mailbag before falling to the ground with an ice pick in her back. The cassette holds vital information on the slave ring and its leaders, and Jules is about to find himself hunted by the police and the goons, as two tapes—one undiscovered and one he recorded himself—sit at the heart of this operatic, elegant, fast, and furious French thriller.
Never taking itself too seriously, the dizziness-inducing story is held aloft by visual artistry and performances that are nothing short of magnificent. From a high-octane and riveting moped chase through the Paris metro to the early 80s rundown elegance of Paris’ winding streets, 80s art studios where past and present collide and crumbling opera houses where beauty defies the march of time. Every frame of Diva is an ode to the past and a vision of an emerging future.
Roger Ebert, one of the handful of critics who praised Diva on its release, said, “It is one of the best thrillers of recent years, but, more than that, it is a brilliant film, a visual extravaganza that announces the considerable gifts of its young director, Jean-Jacques Beineix”
Looking back now, while the visual extravaganza Ebert loved remains the heart of Diva, for me it’s the movie’s place as a crossroads in French cinema that makes it both fascinating and alluring. While Diva was composed within the framework of the French New Wave, its sweeping, colourful strokes created something unique and new in 1981, as Beineix defied the conventions surrounding both art, French cinema and opera. The result was an intoxicating, playful celebration of creativity and freedom, alongside a nuanced conversation on creativity and art in a rapidly changing world.
Forty-four years after its release, Diva continues to spark conversation and debate among critics and cinephiles, and StudioCanal’s stunning restoration and re-release will hopefully see a whole new generation join that debate.
StudioCanal will release Diva on 4K UHD and Blu-ray on October 6. Pre-order now.
Follow Us