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Best movie of this year hands down!

Too much of everything

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Two tapes, an opera lover, thugs, and a corrupt official are the center of "Diva," a French film from 1981.When a woman being chased drops a tape into a mailman's pouch, an opera-loving postman, Jules (Frédéric Andréi), finds himself involved in murder and mayhem.Jules has recently secretly recorded his opera idol, Cynthia Hawkins (Wilhemina Wiggins Fernandez) in a concert. She has never been recorded and refuses to make any. Apparently she only sings one aria in this concert, "Ebben! Ne andro lontana" (I will go far away) from La Wally, or at least that's all we hear her sing and all Jules listens to on tape.Jules becomes a target for men who want the tape the woman put into his mailbag, which incriminates a government official in prostitution. Fortunately, before his place is trashed; he asks a new friend, Alba (Thuy An Luu) to keep the Hawkins recording for him. Really excellent film with great chase scenes, including an exciting motorcycle chase which even involves the French subway.The Paris location adds an atmospheric layer.Fernandez is a stunning diva, and a good actress, but I had some trouble with her vocal production. It's a beautiful voice, but I've heard the La Wally aria sung better. She did a much better job on the Ave Maria and the part of "O patria mia" she sang, which were easier and more lyrically sung.Highly recommended for the acting, its intricate plot, its dark Parisian streets, and beautiful music.

The book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die is where I found this French film, it had a good sounding title and was rated well by critics, so I looked forward to what it would offer. Basically in Paris, France, young postman Jules (Frédéric Andréi) lives a bohemian lifestyle, and he has a small circle of friends, but more than anything he is a great fan of opera, especially the beautiful, celebrated and exceptional American opera singer Cynthia Hawkins (Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez). Cynthia has never had her voice or performances recorded, and refuses to do so, Jules attends her latest performance, and being obsessive secretly and illegally records it on cassette tape, he also steals the gown she wore from her dressing room. One night Jules is travelling on his moped, prostitute Nadia Kalonsky (Chantal Deruaz) drops another tape into his bag, it contains the prostitute's testimony about high-ranking police Inspector Jean Saporta (Jacques Fabbri), as the boss of various rackets, she is murdered after the drop. Jules is now in danger from Taiwanese gangsters seeking the Hawkins tape, and from Saporta's enforcers who want the testimony, inadvertently tangled in a conspiracy of murder he finds refuge with his new friends, mysterious bohemian Serge Gorodish (Richard Bohringer) and his muse young Vietnamese-French woman Alba (Thuy An Luu). Feeling guilty, Jules returns Hawkins's dress, she is initially angry, but does forgive him and is intrigued by his adoration of her, they form a kind of romantic relationship, she meanwhile is being blackmailed by the Taiwanese into recording for them, claiming they have a copy of her performance. Saporta sends his henchmen to take care of Jules and the testimony tape, there is a chase through the PArisian subways, Jules is rescued by Gorodish, but he is almost killed by Saporta himself when returning home, but Gorodish saves him again and forces Saporta to fall down an elevator shaft. In the end Jules plays the tape of Cynthia's performance for her, she is nervous as she has never heard herself sing, and all the crime gangster and corruption stuff seems to disappear and things settle. Also starring Roland Bertin as Simon Weinstadt, Gérard Darmon as Spic, Dominique Pinon as Le Curé, Jean-Jacques Moreau as Krantz and Patrick Floersheim as Zatopek. It is a simple story, a bootlegged recording tape and a tape containing incriminating evidence getting mixed up, and the innocent bystander caught in the middle, it does get a bit in experimentation of style, but it has great camera-work and imagery throughout, and the operatic music is always a joy to listen to, all in all it is a compelling cult crime drama. It was nominated the BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film. Very good!

If one considers this as a white-knuckle thriller contingent on its narrative coherence, DIVA, Beineix's groundbreaking feature debut, is not a qualified specimen, but by retrospect, it is a pioneer piece of work which commences a specific style in French cinema from 1980s, CINÉMA DU LOOK, where a lurid visual approach presides over the essential narrative, exemplified by Luc Besson, Leos Carax, and of course Beineix himself.To each his own, but there is a difference between foundering on fabricating a plausible storyline and discarding the conventional narrative arc in preference to its stylish extravaganza. Unfortunately I consider DIVA is a case of former, not just because the source material, Delacorta's novel, is firmly grounded in its entangled involvements of two tapes, an intrepid postman Jules (Andréi) who is a fervid opera fan of singer Cynthia Hawkins (Fernandez), a drug cartel and prostitution ring in Paris, the inept police department, a Taiwanese gang who deals with pirate tapes and a mysterious man Serge Gorodish (Bohringer) with his young Vietnamese lover Alba (Luu), who phlegmatically keeps the upper hand of the dangerous game. More critically, it is a film deceptively imposes itself as an intriguing police procedural and cat-and-mouse chaser, only during the creative process, as if Beineix had lost the competence to juxtapose these paralleled happenings and commotions with a probable consistence, so he would opt out of the imbroglio and execute a visually-impressive strategy instead to dispatch the task, in order to shift the focus from viewers. The sentimental but fickle affinity between Jules and Cynthia is virtually has no bearing in the main plot at all, yet, it is the most enthralling part, as the title infers, we are more tempted to peek the high-strung temperament of a real diva than a shoddily- concocted heroic actioner to disintegrate a criminal cartel established by an evil police officer.The real-life American soprano Ferandez's rendition of Alfredo Catalani's LA WALLY (the only masterpiece he made during his shortened lifespan) is divine and instantly keeps audience hooked, but as a drama actress, her bent is pretty limited, the rest of the dramatis personae is no better, save the enigmatic Bohringer, Serge is a badly written character in the story, ludicrously becomes an omnipresent last-minute saviour and a crafty criminal himself, but what is his back-story? Living in a huge apartment with an eye-opening parade of post-pop art, one might want to watch an entire movie solely based on his exotic way of life with Alba.Equipped with a neon-lit pizazz, its fixation on opera and female nudity, all I can say is that DIVA deserves to be a niche in a time capsule for epitomising the zeitgeist of its time, when most of us have no mood to revisit, in spite of being obtrusively garish and full of far- fetched whims in its vein.

Jules (Fréderic Andréi) doesn't need any of the assorted divas that the world bows down to. The other lonely young men of the Earth's population have Donna Summer, Diana Ross, Cher. He could laugh at their mainstream appeal, their obsession with dancing/voguing the night away at the nearest discothèque. But he's much too shy (and straight) for that nonsense. Instead of waiting for a Madonna of some kind to help him shimmy down the dance floor for the rest of his young life, he opts for Cynthia Hawkins (Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez), an opera star renowned for her glamor and exquisite singing voice. Cynthia is a diva, no doubt, but she is Jules' diva. As she hates the idea of the business side of music, she has never recorded a performance or, heaven forbid, an LP. So one only has the option to see her live. The few that know of her don't just listen, watch; they change as a human. They leave a concert with a completely new, romanticized outlook on life.At least that's how Jules regards her. A massive poster of Cynthia's stunning face rests next to his bed, acting as guidance; when she holds a recital near his home, he not only steals one of her dresses -- he also captures her performance on a professional quality audio recorder. These acts are not out of malice but of desperation. He lives the life of a lonely postman, having little to cling onto besides his beloved diva.As the film opens, nothing is at stake. Cut just a few minutes into "Diva", though, and you'll find Jules going from nobody to human target in a dramatic flash and bang. Attending the very same concert are two Taiwanese gangsters, who takes notice of Jules' cunning. He becomes a danger to himself, as they would do anything to get their paws on the priceless recording. But things don't end there. The following day, when performing his usual mail route, a prostitute (Chantal Deruaz), killed moments later, drops a cassette in his moped's carrier pouch. That cassette, as it so happens, bears a story that could spell the death sentence for an important law enforcement figure. Also complicating Jules' situation are a flirtatious Vietnamese gigi (Thuy An Luu) and her mysterious lover (Richard Bohringer), who have decidedly unclear motives.On its surface, "Diva" appears to be a De Palma meets Godard visual orgy, but after you cut through its many layers of innovative, celebratory, stylistic cues, you'll find yourself infatuated with its quasi-convoluted (yet simple) story of intrigue. Here is a film deserving of applause for its near-perfect courtship of style and story. "Diva" is an obvious cinematic enchilada of all your favorite thriller delicacies, but it is also so much more than that. Though it was the directorial debut for the now cinema du look defining Jean-Jacques Beineix, it is so assured in its every decision that we feel as though our lives are being manipulated by something akin to a roller coaster, safety controlled but also head-spinningly unpredictable.Beinix likes to toy with us, and for once, obeying the puppet master proves advantageous. Look at the climactic, wildly implausible moped vs. police car chase, for instance. It takes detours down stairs, through narrow alleyways, and into the subway. It's all fantasy pulp, but Beineix's extravagant fondling of the camera makes it all seem possible. That's a sign of a good film, making sheer artificiality seem real. He is a visual poet of the highest common denominator.His images speak louder than words. The opening, focusing on the concert, flips back and forth between the complexions of Jules, through medium shots, Cynthia, through awestruck, close/far angles, and the gangsters. We know that Jules will be the hero, Cynthia the lovely female lead, because cinematographer Philippe Rousselot handles their faces, their bodies, with transfixed appreciation. The criminals, by contrast, are only judged by their sunglasses, which the camera sees as a defining feature. The scene contains no dialogue, unless you count Fernandez's soul stirring voice. But it develops the characters, slyly and imaginatively. And other characters, such as the childish Vietnamese girl and her boyfriend (or lover/father figure/spiritual leader?), live in a loft defined by its blue saturation and sparse furniture. The way their motives remain foggy throughout the movie, how they retreat in the apartment as though it were a rich pop artist's oasis away from the European world, makes them seem otherworldly, completely invincible, ageless.Though "Diva" is extremely stylish, it contains a staggering amount of evocative performances. Andréi possesses a youthful quality that makes him indefinable and difficult to dislike; Fernandez, in her only film role, lives up to the title of the diva and acts as an impossibly knowing, appealing obsession. Luu is agreeably strange and pixieish, while Bohringer stays simultaneously trustworthy and untrustworthy -- he is stupendously enigmatic.Some have said that "Diva" has better visuals than it does actual story, but such an assumption undermines Beineix's mastery. He finds a deft balance between artistic and tonal strength, through his visual ticks and plot implausibilities. It is a wild ride, a thriller ready to delight through its giddy unconformity.