French filmmaker Jean-Jacques Beineix once told me in an interview how his own homeland audience wasn’t feeling his debut 1981 movie Diva: “The film was taken out from theaters after two weeks, and remained in a single theater for one year. At that time, I thought I had made two films for the price of one: my first and my last.” As the 40th anniversary of the film’s release approaches, this ultra-stylish tale (based on a novel by Daniel Odier, aka Delacorta) of a postman (Frederic Andrei) getting wrapped up in murder and intrigue — while also trying to romance a famed opera singer (American soprano Wilhelmenia Fernandez) — has since become an acclaimed cult classic, virtually ushering in the late 20th century’s cinema du look wave of French filmmakers like Luc Besson and Leos Carax. You can stream the movie on YouTube, Amazon Prime, etc., but Kino Lorber Studio Classics has recently dropped a splendid Blu-ray ($29.95) that includes a bounty of interviews, a scene-specific audio commentary from Beineix and an audio commentary from critic and former Scene contributor Simon Abrams. CRAIG D. LINDSEY
Watch Diva on Blu-ray
