Diva.

"The re-release of Jean-Jacques Beineix's postmodern classic Diva at Film Forum this week may come as a surprise," writes Benjamin Sutton in the New York Press. "Not because it doesn’t deserve it, but because it has aged so well."

"Conspicuously clever and shamelessly glam, Diva contrived a neo-new-wave sensibility with a post-Pop gloss that came to be known as 'cinéma du look,' a Franglais label for the micro-movement of super-stylish, unabashedly romantic pictures made throughout the 80s by a clique of bright young things including Beineix, Luc Besson and Leos Carax," writes Nathan Lee in the Voice. "If Beineix's garish pop aesthetic was ahead of its time, it wasn't by much. Five months after the Paris release, the small-screen equivalent of 'cinéma du look' began broadcasting on the newfangled cable network MTV."

Updated through 11/7.

"What could be more natural than the juxtaposition of the industrial and the New Wave - the hero's crumbling concrete walls and the bright-pink vinyl coat of Thuy An Luu as a pubescent Vietnamese shoplifter," writes David Edelstein in New York. "The aquarium that seesaws—fluorescent blue water sloshing—in the middle of the loft of the Zen avatar (Richard Bohringer) is like the film frame itself, off-balance in the most balanced way imaginable."

"It's a supremely gorgeous and supremely shallow motion picture, but it believes in art with a capital A. And practically nobody does anymore," writes Andrew O'Hehir in Salon.

Update, 11/7: "Coincidentally, Blade Runner, made around the same time, is also being re-released now," notes Steve Erickson at ScreenGrab. "The two films share several points of contact, especially a nostalgia for film noir and an indulgence in style that manifests itself in blue-tinged cinematography and impossibly detailed production design."

Posted by dwhudson at November 2, 2007 1:35 AM