Diva
She is the iconic diva whose voice has never been captured, the American soprano Cynthia Hawkins performing a sold-out concert at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Paris the home of young postman Jules who has followed her across Europe, enraptured by her presence and her beauty, making his way backstage to steal a moment of her time, and as he departs, to lift her robe from where it is hung, a keepsake alongside the bootleg he made.
A chance encounter at the train station the next day while Jules is on his rounds, Nadia, the woman who bumps into him drops a cassette tape into his motorcycle pannier unbeknownst to him; pursued by two thugs, she is murdered moments later, but they are unable to locate the evidence which would incriminate their boss, Jules now in possession of two separate illicit recordings, a marked man twice over.
Based on the novel of the same name by Daniel “Delacorta” Odier, Diva was directed by Jean-Jacques Beiniex at the suggestion of producer Irène Silberman, an iconic Eurothriller of 1981 which helped shape the movement which would be known as cinéma du look, energetic, stylish and standing as a cool counterpart to the self-examinations which had characterised European arthouse cinema in the post-war decades, followed soon after by Luc Besson’s Subway, another neon-lit depiction of the Parisian underworld.
Starring Frédéric Andréi as Jules, he is a pawn, not necessarily an innocent but certainly naïve of the repercussions of what he has done, orbiting Cynthia (Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez), magnificent in her beauty, her perfection, the purity of the voice he has stolen, but also pulled by the gravity of Gorodish (Richard Bohringer), another admirer of art in all its forms, while pursued by the sinister and violent “Curé” (Jean-Pierre Jeunet favourite Dominique Pinon).
The adoration of Cynthia by Jules becoming a kinship then a relationship where she radiates her glory upon him and she basks in his adulation, it is complicated by the secrets he keeps from her, and Diva is undeniably French, a world of highs and lows, of opera singers and lowlifes who mingle on the streets and in the salons, of allegiances, alliances and betrayals, dazzling to the eye even as it runs in circles back to the scene of the crime.
A winner of four César awards restored in 4K from the original 35mm negative, digitally graded and cleaned as part of StudioCanal’s Vintage World Cinema collection, the new edition of Diva carries multiple language and subtitle options and is supported by Blue as Diva, recollections of the production from Beiniex, Andréi, Bohringer, Pinon and others and an appreciation of the film by Denis Parent, together totalling almost two hours.
Diva will be available on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from StudioCanal from Monday 6th October
