Diva (1981)
Diva (1981), directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix
A lot of plot in this stylish French thriller:
The Diva (American Soprano Wilhelmenia Fernandez in her only feature film) will not allow recordings of her voice...
...but Taiwanese record pirates are willing to do a lot to issue a disc...
...and the Diva's number one fan and polite stalker, Jules the postman on a moped, has made a bootleg tape with professional equipment...
...while corrupt police running a prostitution ring...
...are desperately searching for an incriminating tape made by Mr Big's Polish mistress...
...who they murdered after she slipped the tape into Jules' saddlebag...
...while he seeks the aid of a mysterious Zen-like guy who has surprising criminal knowledge and talents...
...and who is aided by Alba, his Vietnamese... protégé? ward? underage lover? These people are too cool to tell. She's a handful, whatever her role.
My movie-going gang saw this several times in the theater. We were nuts about the industrial furnishing of the loft apartments and the ambient music -- very big back then -- that Zen-guy Gorodish used while assembling his massive jigsaw puzzle. I suppose we envied his mysterious harmony and deadly know-how. This becomes a little excessive toward the end when his powers become almost Jedi-like.
Pausing the thriller action, the pace slows now and then and becomes meditative; lovely score and photography. There is something especially atmospheric about good 80s films, how they evoke the night life and somehow bring the surroundings to the viewer.
Bad-guy Dominique Pinon is 26 here. His oddly-shaped head was featured on posters for the film. Later he became one of director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's regular actors.
Available in several DVD versions. See DVDBeaver for details. My thumbnails are from the Anchor Bay disc, said to have the best image, although Studio Canal has more extras. The one from Fox is not anamorphic.
