Film Review: "Maria"
Pablo Larraín’s Angelina Jolie-led portrait of Maria Callas' last days is as beautiful and devastating as its subject's voice.
Hello, dear reader! Do you like what you read here at Omnivorous? Do you like reading fun but insightful takes on all things pop culture? Do you like supporting indie writers? If so, then please consider becoming a subscriber and get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. There are a number of paid options, but you can also sign up for free! Every little bit helps. Thanks for reading and now, on with the show!
It will come as a surprise to absolutely no one that I often feel drawn to films about aging, insecure women, fading divas who can’t quite bring themselves to embrace, let alone accept, their own mortality and the loss of their gift. It’s for this reason that I’ve always seen more pathos than terror in films such as Sunset Boulevard and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, regardless of how much both of those movies, in their own ways, seem to want the viewer to view their women with some measure of horror and contempt.
It’s equally unsurprising that I found myself deeply moved by Maria, Pablo Larraín’s new film focusing on the famed opera singer Maria Callas, portrayed here with a frail but steely grace by Angelina Jolie. As with Jackie and Spencer–two of the director’s more recent offerings–Maria takes place within a limited time frame and explores the inner and outer life of a woman struggling with demons. In Callas’ case, it’s the fact that her health and body are failing and, as a result, she will never regain the voice that made her world-famous and which has always been key to her sense of herself.
Jolie, like far too many other actresses (Marilyn Monroe comes to mind) has often had her acting abilities subsumed under her sex symbol reputation, but Maria shows us again and again why this has always been a mistake. Jolie’s face gives us insight into Callas’ inner anguish as she struggles to achieve what once seemed so effortless. The actress reportedly trained at opera singing for over half a year in order to prepare for the role, and you can tell from her performance how much she put in the work. Her every gesture and expression conveys the physical work that goes into being an opera singer of Callas’ caliber even as, at the same time, her lithe frame and tightened features show the tremendous toll her art has taken on her. Indeed, her attempts to regain some measure of her former vocal power provides the emotional core of the film, precisely because it’s an effort that is sadly doomed to failure, however much we, and Callas herself, might wish it were otherwise.
While Maria struggles to regain her voice in the present, the film occasionally shifts to her past–presented in black and white–and these scenes shed light on her infamous affair with Aristotle Onassis (a perfectly-cast Haluk Bilginer), as well as her troubled childhood under her mother’s domineering influence, including her decision to essentially sold her to Axis soldiers. Indeed, the past is never far away from Callas’ consciousness, precisely because she yearns so desperately, and futilely, to regain those things which have been lost: her physical robustness, her voice, her loves and, as we see again and again in the flashbacks that feature some of her most notable performances, the adulation of the masses.
There’s an ongoing tension in Maria between, on the one hand, Callas’ powerlessness over her body and its gradual deterioration–made worse by her refusal to follow the doctor’s orders–and, on the other hand, her imperiousness toward her two loyal servants, butler Ferruccio (Pierfrancesco Favino) and housemaid Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher). Just as Max of Sunset Boulevard proves unable, or unwilling, to rein in Norma’s excesses, so Ferruccio and Bruna can’t seem to get their mistress to look out for her own well-being. They love her, clearly, but their anguish at her deteriorating physical and mental state is evident at every moment, as is their devastation at her death in the film’s finale.
Adding to the sense of pathos and tragedy is the fact that Callas’ medication causes her to imagine that she is speaking to Kodi Smit-Phee’s Mandrax, a young man supposedly interviewing her for a documentary about her life. He seems to give the fading diva a chance to order her life, and her past, as she would have it rather than as it is. At the same time, his illusory presence constantly makes us wonder whether what (and who) we’re seeing–including Callas’ sister, Yakinthi (Valeria Golino) are real or are just more delusions. This is the stuff of grand tragedy and, considering the subject, entirely apt.
There’s a languid tempo to the film that serves its subject, and it’s remarkable what can be accomplished when a director slows down and just lets their actor act. In fact, while we were watching Maria my partner remarked that it was refreshing to watch a film that didn’t seem intent on rushing us through the whole thing with quick cuts and frantic pacing. The camera dwells with loving indulgence on both Callas’ palatial home and on the streets of Paris, with the former serving almost as a living tomb for the singer in her last days and the latter offering her brief moments of freedom.
It is perhaps fitting that Callas ultimately ends up sacrificing her life for her art. The film has not exactly been subtle about laying out the trajectory of this final portion of her life, and even those who aren’t fans of opera know that the heroine often dies in the end. Even so, her death still pierces us, just as it pierces her loving servants, who arrive home to hear her last soaring notes, knowing as they do so that they will never hear her again. After calling the paramedics, they walk together out of the room, leaving Callas behind to their ministrations and to history itself.
By the time that I was finished watching Maria, I began to think that I might have just been converted into being an opera gay. Such is the power of Jolie’s performance, and such is the skill with which Larraín has brought Callas’ last days to life, that I don’t think anyone could be unmoved by this portrait of a fading diva all too aware of her impending mortality. It’s one of those films which is quietly devastating, and I loved every single, luxurious, devastating moment of it.