Almost like a pop music video with the thematic concerns of Neil Jordan and Luc Besson, but with style rooted more firmly in classic French crime cinema, Diva is certainly an interesting and enjoyable oddity. Sparse, economical, and dotted with abstract moments sometimes resembling the simplicity of Jean-Pierre Melville, Diva is focused on the ethical implications of audio recordings and their significance as a record of the past. The plot is derived from the chase that ensues once Jules (Frédéric Andréi) illegally records the performance of elusive opera singer Cynthia Hawkins (Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez) and then has this unauthorized tape confused for the confessional tape of a prostitute, who planted hers into Jules’s moped satchel right before being murdered. Now Jules is being pursued for both recordings by the corrupt police officer in charge of the prostitution ring and Taiwanese gangsters seeking the only existing LP of the opera singer.

In a brief interview in the DVD supplements, Beineix (perhaps the true diva here) goes great lengths in pointing out how this film broke new ground, had a long theatrical run, is timeless, how he invented the crane used in crane shots, and on and on. My feelings about his first film, however, remain somewhat lukewarm. The biggest problem with the film is its villains, both the thugs of the prostitution ring and the Taiwanese gangsters. They are scarcely menacing and hardly convincing, which of course does not make me worry too much about the well being of our heroes. Their criminal acts and the innocent people implicated in their attempted cover-up matter little when compared to the much more interesting, chaste love between Jules and the diva.

The redeeming qualities of Diva lie in the questions it raises about artistic integrity. As her manager points out, an artist as distinctive as Cynthia Hawkins will have to inevitably compromise her pride and record her voice in an effort to beat the gangsters to the punch and to appropriately capitalize on the illegal LP. The strength of her voice will not live forever, but a recording of it will. The idea of an opera diva’s first consumable album holding as much power as a prostitute’s exposé proves more exciting than the actual hubbub stirred up to obtain each track. Within the context of a decent French thriller, here is where Beineix can call Diva groundbreaking and where I find the film to be worth watching.

This review originally appeared in DenverProjectionBooth.blogspot.com in September 2008.