“The definition of ‘diva’ is all of you in this room,” he replied bluntly. Angelina Jolie to the body of journalists who addressed all their questions to him during the presentation of Married in front of the press. Even if the entire cast (with Pierfrancesco Favino and Alba Rohrwacher) and the director Pablo Larrain were in the room, hardly a word was said to them.
“Great composers define ‘diva’ differently,” Jolie replied, appealing to Larraín. The filmmaker has released a delicate and humanist biopic about the final days of the opera singer, who died crushed by the myth that had been created around her: “A diva would never exist if there was no excellence in what she does.“To be a diva, “you must first do your job perfectly. Then you can be a diva.”
The Chilean explained during the presentation at the Venice Festival an anecdote about how Callas would leave the stage if someone made a mistake in a line during a rehearsal: “The ‘diva’ can be born from a sensation derived from a simple discipline.”
However, the years and drugs have taken their toll on a woman scarred by loss. Jolie concluded: “I wish he was here to see this act of kindness. When he died, the critics were very cruel towards him.and not because she didn’t try. “He died in much loneliness and pain.”
Excessive but touched with grace
With “Maria”, Pablo Larraín concludes his trilogy of broken divas, who had already corrected the myths about the last blows in the biographies of Jackeline Kennedy in “Jackie” and Diana Spencer in “Spencer”. His frescoes are always restorative, seeking to mix compassion without renouncing genius.
Angelina Jolie at the feet of Maria Callas in Pablo Larraín’s biopic. Photo: Pablo Larraín
For this occasion, Larraín imagines an interview between Callas and a metaphorical representation of the pills she was addicted to (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who play chess as Bergman’s Grim Reaper while tracing the diva’s memories of the week before her heart failure.
The film evolves on two registers: first, it elevates the whole universe around the singer, make Paris a dream setting. A world worthy of a perfume advert (at the ineffable height of his voice), where he can once again stage his greatest successes, milestones that go beyond a single format and demand all the efforts of cinema. Obediently, Larraín films in Super-8 and digital-4K, either under the shocks of cinema-vérité or in travels chandelier
Angelina Jolie in “Maria”. Photo: Pablo Larraín
In addition, Married He begs for mercy and leaves Jolie as alone as she is skeletal, transformed into Lady Norma Desmond, manipulated and as fragile as the trembling eyes of a sumptuous diva can express. We wonder where Callas’ presence ends and her interpreter’s begins.
From trophy wife to trophy woman
Jolie fears a loneliness and pain that will be difficult to feel on the red carpet, and even more so after learning last Tuesday that the Toronto Film Festival will award her the Tribute Honorary Award on September 8 for her work uniting “social impact” and cinema.
This will happen just after knowing, this Saturday, if he will win the Volpi Cup for acting, which has many numbers. A real rebirth: “These years – four years away from the camera – I needed to be more at home with my family. That’s why now I am very grateful to be in this creative world.”
Pretty, already an Oscar winner Innocence Interrupted does not expect any rewards: “I will know if I have done well when I know what the fans of Maria Callas and the opera think. My biggest fear is to disappoint them, everything else is just noise“.
Angelina Jolie in a scene from “Maria”. Photo: Pablo Larraín
“I identify a lot with the most tender part of her,” he confessed, referring to Callas.In a world that has no room for tenderness, I share your vulnerability“Fragility is not something the public would associate with an icon used by the industry as a ‘woman’, whether it’s Brad Pitt or Billy Bob Thornton, or as something difficult to manage, even when she was a heroine like Lara Croft or Mrs Smith.
Transgression weird
The Jockeywith Úrsula Corberó, closed the day by opening all the cupboards. The data may seem anecdotal, but they are not. Úrsula Corberó is the recognizable face of what everyone sees in Spain: from “physics or chemistry” to “la casa de papel”. And today he presented the most transgressive work – not necessarily in an obvious way – and weird of the entire Venetian Competition.
This is the new film by Argentine Luis Ortega, who surprised the awards circuit with “The Angel”, also nominated for best Ibero-American film at the Goyas. If it were the portrait of a dandy who has coated himself with lust in the filth of an aristocratic and morally finished world, Ortega will today want to redouble his provocation… Although ‘The Jockey’, this fable that invokes the liquid nature of human identity and our constant transformations, is more humanist than provocative. Humanist, in a concave sense.
Úrsula Corberó and Nahuel Pérez Biscayart in “El Jockey”. Photo: Rei_Pictures / El_Despacho / Infinity Hill / Warner Music Entertainment
It will tell the end of the days of Remo Manfredini (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart), a hard-working jockey in love with a rider who, unlike this poor horse addict, wins races (Corberó). After an accident that is more absurd than tragic, Remo will lose the machismo he was until then and start wandering, like Monsieur Hulot calmly leaving the miseries of the world, discovering the most bizarre realities of a miserable Argentina, one that deserves to be “put to sleep”.
The expression is sought after. He is talking about a film that invokes Aki Kaurismäki’s austere realism only as a backdrop for a series of dark, laughable, disorienting dreams. A path of death and rebirth into something we cannot explain… An existence in transition. Despite its occasional absurd mistakes, we applaud it. And I will say no more.
