For two decades, Chilean director Pablo Larraín has been making Spanish-language films ranging from horror stories (“Fuga,” “Posthumous”) to political stories (“Nau,” “Neruda”) and character studies (“Tony”). “Manero,” “Emma”) are, by the way, studies of scary political figures (“El Conde”). In recent years, however, Larraín has had a parallel career, making three English-language films whose titles are derived from the names of two famous women at the center: the first, 2016’s “Jackie,” starring Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy in the days following the assassination of her husband or two American presidents John F. Kennedy; the next, “Spencer,” from 2021, with Kristen Stewart as Diana Spencer, the future Princess of Wales, on a busy weekend at the British royal family’s country home; and now “Maria,” with Angelina Jolie as opera singer Maria Callas.
These three films form an improvised triptych of dark fantasies and adventures about creative women under intense pressure. But “Maria,” which Netflix bought ahead of its Venice Film Festival premiere, is in some ways an unintuitive way to accompany “Jackie” and “Spencer.” Those first two films were stylized, sometimes deliciously over-the-top (“Jackie” is more effective than “Spencer”) and often hysterical—and given that “Maria” spends herself in the uncontrollable theatrical world of grand opera, you might expect it to be more stylized and over-the-top than the rest of the bunch. Again, there’s more substance in many respects; the music from Puccini and Verdi is there to provide wonderful emotional flourishes, but the film itself is dreamlike and almost entirely quiet.
As you can see in the early chapters of La Reine’s Chronicles of Famous Women , Maria is both beautiful and elusive; Callas explores her, but you have no interest in defining, explaining, or fixing her. And while Jackie was a gifted exercise in tension and Spencer occasionally shows two triple-triples, the new film feels tight and precise, with a brilliant flourish, thanks to cinematographer Ed Lachman (recently nominated for an Oscar for his work on The Number).
This is partly because Callas herself has always insisted on staying out of control. If “Jackie” and “Spencer” are about women struggling to avoid going mad and losing control, “Maria” is about someone who is at peace with her madness. She can drift in and out of fantasy at times, but she Della Fantasy World She said from a certain height to her faithful housemaid (Alba Rohrwacher): “Whose man is this?”
Any opera worth its salt requires a final death dinner, and that’s when “Maria” begins, with Callas d’etat in her unfathomably luxurious Paris apartment, surrounded by ornate furniture, dying of a heart attack at the age of 53. It doesn’t take long, and instead the short disco closes in on the white singer singing “Ave Maria (Desdêmona)” from Verdi’s “Otello.” The voice clearly belongs to Callas, since she couldn’t make a movie about her with a movie star singing those arias, but Julie manages not to sound mad—and at times throughout the film, Larrain’s vocal blend blends with the actress’s. Oh, singer.
Callas's music is heard constantly in the film, and often serves as a gateway to other times and other worlds – not the case of “Ave Maria” which sums up the entire career in the space of one region.
Most of the film takes place during the last week of the subject's life, and is embodied in numerous flashbacks. The film is set at a time when Callas is no longer a great singer with an incomparable voice, but every movement can still be imperious and real. She walks through the house slowly and deliberately, measuring her words and using them dramatically; her reputation as a terrible super-singer precedes her, and she knows what and uses what.
She is also plagued by nightly visions and stories of her dead lover Aristotle Onassis. But she is not interested in turning to medication to control her visions, so the woman in the film leaps into reality.
This is the perfect territory for Larraín, who has shown a keen interest in using artistic imagination to find the hearts of real people. Callas tells his two-man crew (or second mordomo, played by Pierfrancesco Favino) that a TV crew will be interviewing the man and ignores the question of whether the crew is real or not. Sure, a cinematographer and an interviewer (played by Kodi Smit-McPhee) appear on the train as themselves during the film—but that doesn’t mean they aren’t the product of their imagination.
Or maybe it's a way for her to be herself. “Maybe we can say a little about her life outside the box,” says the interviewer at a certain height, to which Callas's response is quick: “There is no life outside the box. The box is in my mind.”
The box is also in his bedroom, lined with marble busts as supplied by his fans. On the streets of Paris, where a crowd passing the Eiffel Tower can turn into an opera chorus and an empty theater, where a solo pianist rehearses and can play with a reduced orchestra as he walks to the end of his district.
Callas de Larraín is fascinated by these fascinated people, and her home and Mordomo Sofridora (Pierfrancesco Favino) have become accustomed to her needs. “Book me a table in the café where the waiter said they were,” said Ao Mordomo from a certain height. “This is a gift of flattery.”
The film tells a sad story as it slides inexorably toward the end we know is coming, but it also suggests that there is a good reason for this flattery and a price. When he says he wants to date the man with his premonition of a brutal childhood, he shakes his head silently. “It’s okay,” she says. “That’s the only way to get into music.”
Does music play a lot in “Maria”? Of course, why not? It would be hard to imagine a better way to encapsulate the agony of family tensions than Puccini’s “O mio babbino caro,” or a more dramatic way to explore the fractured psyche than a mad dinner than “La bohème,” which does just that. Not a film, it alternates between eras and is alternately exciting and entertaining.
In a film that is majestic on the surface and stormy below, the exposed properties, the semi-architecture, and the forced confinement of Julie are perfect for the vision of Callas de la Reine. She is a glorious, shining shipwreck, searching for peace, but inexorably drawn into a world of grandiose artifice. “My life is an opera,” she says. “There is no reason in opera.”
Maria also gives up her mind. And that's even better.
“Maria” will be released on Netflix again this year.
