Feast your Betty blue eyes on the breathtaking new 4K restoration of the classic French thriller Diva, written and directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix. Adapted from the novel by Delacorta, it focuses on a tape recording secretly made by delivery boy Jules (Frederic Andrei) of a performance by famed opera singer Cynthia Hawkins (Wilhelmenia Fernandez). Hawkins has never released any records and doesn’t allow recordings, but Jules is a huge fan and made the recording for himself only.
However, foreign commercial interests catch wind of the quality of this particular recording and want it. Meanwhile, trafficked Nadia (Chantal Deruaz) is on the streets being closed in on by the sinister L’Antillais (Gerard Darmon) and Le cure (Dominique Pinon). Nadia slips a cassette into the saddlebag on the parked moped Jules uses for deliveries before getting stabbed in the back.
While shopping for records, Jules meets Alba (An Luu), a teenage model and shoplifter who lives with the mysterious Serge Gorodish (Richard Bohringer). Alba is strictly disco, but she is blown away by the Hawkins recording and insists on borrowing it to play for Serge. Meanwhile, the police are searching for the tape that Nadia had, as more people are stabbed.
Jules sets out to meet his opera idol in person, but he cannot predict the storm that is brewing over a few feet of magnetic tape.
Frédéric Andréi and Thuy An Luu in Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Diva (1981). Courtesy: Rialto Pictures / STUDIOCANAL.
“Jules sets out to meet his opera idol in person, but he cannot predict the storm that is brewing…”
I started the 80s staring at the Diva poster in my seaside town and finished the 80s reading other Delacorta novels in the same series. Beineix provided the world the most ornate gateway into a decade imaginable, as Diva was a stylistic lightning bolt that the look of the ’80s rode in on.
The mannequins, the murals, the fluorescents, and the neon all pave the way to that “future is now” atmosphere the 80s would embrace and later squander. And now you can see it in all of its electric glory with a 4K restoration from the original that makes it look better than ever. The unique eerie shades of the turn of the decade are intensified into an evil rainbow like the ones found in puddles of gasoline.
The icy blues, the violent reds, and the devouring shadows all are paraded in razor-sharp splendor. You can feel yourself rolling through the arcades with a knife in your trench coat pocket. Pinon’s iconic image as the killer punk rocker in shades gets all the great angles it deserves, complementing his legendary half-face portrait on the poster.
Even after over four decades, Diva still impresses with Beineix’s masterful mix of highbrow and lowbrow. With the stunning new 4K restoration, Diva retains its well-deserved status as a late 20th-century movie masterpiece.
"…retains its well deserved status as a late 20th century movie masterpiece. "
