A lady prone to technique but dazzling nonetheless, DIVA is visually astonishing film fare. The complex plot concerns Andrei, a young Parisian mail carrier, and his love for Fernandez, a famous black American opera singer. Andrei attends a performance by the diva, recording it secretly
while a sinister Taiwanese man watches him. In a separate incident a dazed girl walking through the Paris metro is murdered by two thugs--the greasy Darmon and the punkish, bald Pinon. As the girl dies she slips an audiocassette into Andrei's mailpouch. Andrei now finds himself unwittingly caught
in two plots: that of Taiwanese record pirates who want his recording of the diva and that of pimps and drug runners who want the incriminating tape left in his mailpouch.
The debut film from Jean-Jacques Beineix, DIVA is perhaps the most picturesque film to come out of France in years. Together with art director Hilton McConnico and cameraman Philippe Rousselot, Beineix creates awesome shot after awesome shot, so much so that many felt the film was too stylish. At
times the sensibility is very "New Wave" (as in fashion and music, not the film movement); at other times, Beineix is intensely Impressionistic. These qualities are even further enhanced by a perfect musical score, contributed by Vladimir Cosma, who has used Act I of Alfredo Catalani's opera La
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