The empty tragedy of Maria
Diva down, literally.
From the get-go, Pablo Larrain’s Maria makes a deliberate attempt to make you look its titular character and the woman playing her - Angelina Jolie - straight in the face.
It’s black and white, she sings passionately down the lens at the audience, and is bathed in a glow of glamour and impending tragedy. It’s all so leaden with emotion, so fervently trying to elicit deep passion, and swirls and swoons with sorrow. It’s all too much, much too much, for one soul to bear - even one so burdened with talent like hers. As we’re taken into the beautiful, golden-tinged apartment of Maria Callas, we see her attended by a butler and maid who hang on her every word and share only brief missives with one another - about her.
Later, The Callas (a name she sometimes opts for) walks the empty streets of Paris and in a haze of drugs and ego, imagines herself being interviewed by a television crew led by Kodi Smith-McPhee whose character shares a name with a brand drug made of methaqualone. She then finds herself in a concert hall where a pianist sits in awe of her and awaits her voice to come into the room - but it never does. We’re given all of this quiet tragedy, this ocean of sadness, but why does it all feel like it’s self-serving? Why is it that there’s an emptiness at the centre of it?
Pablo Larrain’s previous works on famous women - Spencer and Jackie - talked about the relationships in their lives and gave us a much fuller, deeper understanding. In the case of Jackie Kennedy and Natalie Portman’s performance, there was a woman who was bound in edifice and tradition, but found a way to turn it towards meaning and authenticity. In Spencer, Diana was a fairytale princess trapped in a loveless marriage, tied to an otherworldly presence and haunted by the other fairytale princesses who came before her. Yet in Maria, Angelina Jolie’s fussy, laboured performance takes up so much screentime and so much space that there’s no room for anything else to come through. Aristotle Onassis, a character who played a huge role in the real life of Maria Callas, wafts through some scenes together - yet there is crucially no mention of the sinister reality of his role in her life. Callas’ sister, played by the great Valeria Golino, appears only in a single scene where she tries to confront her drug abuse.
Though it’s beautifully shot by Edward Lachman, and the grandeur of the costumes matches the operatic overtones, Maria is a film that has a great hole where its heart should be. It’s trying desperately to make us feel as though there is a tragedy, a terrible loss and a life being cut short, but we only ever see faint and brief glimpses of it, and so often, it’s wrapped up in bullshit that it’s impossible to know what - if any of it - was real. How are the audience supposed to connect with this if they haven’t got the Wikipedia article open or have thoroughly read and re-read the numerous biographies about Maria Callas? Though it may have ambition and style to spare, Maria is so concerned with gravitas and theatrics that it neglects to make anyone outside of opera diehards care. And for them, is this truly the chronicle of an international sensation that they deserve?