Diva

[JimRivett]

What prompted this post was an article in todays LA Times, Calendar Section, concerning the restored and re-released version of this film. Diva, directored by Jean-Jacques Beineix, was first released some 25 years ago and over that period of time it has remained on my top 25 list of films. The thing that has concerned me has been the fact that this is a French film and that I would wake up one morning and consider Jerry Lewis a comic genius. The Times article puts all my concerns to rest, you see this film was a flop in France and if not for its showing at the Toronto Film Festival in 1981 it would have remained in obscurity.

If you have not seen this film I won't spoil it for you other than to say it main character is a young postman called Jules, and the plot intertwines among the different characters which include an opera singer (Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez), a young and attractive Vietnamese kleptomaniac, her older white boyfriend and a host of gangsters and police officers.

Starting this Friday is will be shown for a two week period at the Nuart in West LA.