Tripwire Reviews StudioCanal’s Diva 4K Restoration Out Now On Blu-ray

Not Quite Hitting The Right Note

Tripwire’s editor-in-chief takes a look at 1981’s Diva, released in a special 4K Restoration edition as part of StudioCanal’s Vintage World Cinema from today…

Diva 4K Restoration
Director : Jean-Jacques Beineix
Stars :  Frédéric Andréi, Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, Roland Bertin, Richard Bohringer, Gérard Darmon, Dominique Pinon,

Director Jean-Jaques Beineix went on to helm the acclaimed Betty Blue in 1986 but Diva, five years earlier, was his debut.

Diva is a film about an opera obsessive Jules (Andréi), the diva of the title Cynthia Hawkins (Wiggins Fernandez) and a group of gangsters who are part of a police corruption ring. Based on the book of the same name by Daniel Odier writing as Delacorta, Diva was adapted by successful French Bande Dessinee creator Jean van Hamme (Largo Winch) with director Beineix. It’s a very odd film which while stylish doesn’t really engage with a non-French audience. The only familiar face here in terms of its cast is Dominique Pinon as the malicious thug. Pinon went on to star in a number of Jeunet and Caro films around a decade later including Delicatessen and The City Of Lost Children.

It has built up quite a cult following thanks to its uniquely idiosyncratic approach to the French thriller. Its post-modernist approach to structure meant it was a film that was trying to do something different but didn’t really create much of a wave in its wake.  It is almost like an updated French New Wave film which is heavy on its cinematic language but lacks the nuance and direction of its progenitors. There are a few onscreen flourishes but often the story takes place with a series of backdrops which come across as deliberately obtuse and off-kilter with a very unsatisfying conclusion.Performances are solid but shallow from the main players, with a plot that lacks any real drama.

In 4K, the film does look sharper than before but it is questionable as to whether the film deserves such treatment. The extras just include two documentaries: Blue as DIVA: Memories of a cult film DIVA, which covers the making of the film featuring its director and many of its production team and cast and About the film by Denis Parent.

Director Beineix only went on to make the aforementioned Betty Blue as well as a few less notable projects and his career was strangely sporadic, passing away in 2022.

Diva is a true French oddity, lacking the cohesion and the character arcs that other superior Gallic thrillers possess. Worth a look for completists but definitely more of a curate’s egg than a real classic.

JOEL MEADOWS