Diva (1981)

Diva
Directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix
Written by Jean-Jacques Beineix and Jean Van Hamme from a novel by “Delacorta” (Daniel Odier)
1981/France
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

A triumph of style over substance.

The setting is a very hip and artsy contemporary Paris.  A young postman/messenger idolizes opera soprano Cynthia Hawkins (Wilhelnmenia Wiggins Fernandez).  Hawkins has long refused to record her performances. So the postman records a performance surreptitiously.  Afterwards, he goes back stage, meets her, and steals her dress.  He returns to his stupendously cool Paris loft.

A little later he meets a super-cool Vietnamese teenager and strikes up a relationship with her even though she shares the even more stupendous loft of a philosopher? writer? brooding hipster?.  A prostitute tosses another tape into the postman’s moped saddlebag.  This tape is relentlessly pursued by French hit men and their employer.  The tape of the singer is relentlessly pursued by West Indian? Taiwanese? pirates.

Obviously, I found the plot hard to follow.  But this is an example of the “cinema du look” movement and the production is the thing here.  The film certainly delivers in terms of its beautiful art direction, cinematography and score.  So it is an enjoyable watch though not one that I would seek out again particularly.