Diva - stylish French thriller

 Diva

Saturday, May 27 at 7 PM

An opera singer, drug smuggling, corrupt police, a wild chase scene, two scandalous tapes, colorful characters, wild sets: Diva has it all.

 

Diva single-handedly launched the Cinéma du look, an explosion of visually stunning, punk-inspired, super-cool French movies in the early ‘80s.

 

It was so ahead of its time, only 100,000 people had seen it at the end of its first year, but as word got around, it became a a smash art house film.

 

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID ABOUT DIVA IN 1982:

 

“Every shot seems designed to delight the audience. If Diva is about anything, it is about the joy of making movies.” — Pauline Kael, The New Yorker

 

“A visual extravaganza. One of the most persistently entertaining, absorbing and scary thrillers I’ve seen in a long time...Diva’s chase scene deserves ranking with the all-time classics, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The French Connection, and Bullitt.”— Roger Ebert

 

“You have only to watch 10 minutes of Diva and you know you are in the hands of a man born to make movies. Sensual, funny, outlandish, this is a movie devoted to strictly to the pleasure principle."— David Ansen, Newsweek

 

“A piece of divine madness, full of comedy romance, opera and murder. Diva is a thriller with a new way of looking at the world — through a glass, brightly.”— Michael Sragow, Rolling Stone

 

“Diva is not only the most purely pleasurable movie to open here this year, but surely one of the finest films to arrive from France in a decade.”— J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

 

“A razzle-dazzle sendup of thrillers...high-spirited and outrageous.” — Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

 

“Funny, exciting, moving, mysterious and beautiful to look at...I love Diva.”— David Overby, Film Comment

 

“An extraordinary thriller. Complex, stylish and fast-moving, Diva is a superior piece of entertainment.”— Variety

 

“The most impressive debut from a French director since Godard’s Breathless.”— Jay Scott, The Globe and Mail

 

 

Tickets are $10 and available at Highway 61 Coffeehouse and the door.

DIVA - Trailer from Rialto Pictures on Vimeo.