Diva (1981, French)

Diva was recommended to me years ago, but as I'm not big on French New Wave, I'd never gotten around to it until now, when the Music Box Theatre advertised a brand-new 35mm print. The film follows Jules (Frederic Andrei) as he chases his obsession, an opera diva (Wilhelmenia Fernandez), and is himself chased by white slave/drug smugglers and assorted other parties. It's all a bit tawdry for French New Wave, which is why I suppose it caused such a sensation. And there are aspects I liked very much - the intricacy of the plot is very striking, as two audio tapes are followed through Paris, their paths constantly criss-crossing, and some of the sequences, particularly a moped chase and an escape from the city, are brilliantly filmed - but the whole thing felt a bit drawn out. It would have benefitted from a certain leanness that it doesn't possess. However, it's beautifully photographed, and as my friend said, terribly French. And for Jean-Pierre Jeunet fans, Dominique Pinon has a wonderful small role as a very irritable thug. In any case, I was expecting more from this, as I've heard it spoken of in such high terms for so long, but perhaps my FNW prejudices got in the way here.