Movie Review – Aria

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A film from 1987 that presents ten separate movie short stories set to, and inspired by different major film directors and each with a separate cast of highly distinguished actors. Some sequences work better than others though the music is always wonderful. Highlights include the framing story, as John Hurt prepares to sing in a theatre where only his lover is present, and she listens attentively, set to Leoncavallo’s "I pagliacci, translated as The Sad Clown. Jean-Luc Godard creates the very sexy, funny and beautiful study of two silently naked women trying to attract the attention of male body builders at a gym, only to find the men too narcissistic and self-absorbed in their own physiques to notice the girls exist. The music is Armides by Jean-Baptiste Lully. The funniest and most accessible sequence, with the best known tune, is Verdi’s Rigoletto turning it from tragedy to high farce as a man has a torrid affair in a swank hotel oblivious that his wife is doing likewise in the hotel room next door – only an inept bellhop mixing up their video recordings of the activity exposes the couple to what they have been doing. This is the only sequence to use dialogue as well as the music. It's hilarious and brilliantly shot by Julien Temple. Die tote Stadt by Korngold depicts Bruges with footage of its cemeteries, empty snowbound streets and statues of angels depicting a sense of death, while indoors two happy warm naked loves sing the aria to one another – the girl is played by a young Liz Hurley. Ken Russell shows restraint and tact in his astonishing sequence set to Puccini’s Turandot and its central aria, Nesson Dorma. Linsi Drew, normally associated with adult only work, plays a car crash victim whose skin is badly torn and disfigured. As medics struggle to save her and sew her up she fantasizes that each scar is decorated in glittering tribal art and jewellery – the very opposite to the grim reality she is to face. Weak sequences – Rameau’s Les Boréades as filmed by Robert Altman, shows a group of 17th century asylum inmates trying, but failing to enjoy the opera but giving in to their craziness and lust instead. It looks like an out-take from the Maratsade stage play which did this so much better. Un ballo in maschera by Verdi is used by Nicholas Roeg to open the movie properly. It takes an extraordinary true event from the 1930’s and saturates it in art house pretention for no apparent reason. The reality concerns King Zog of Albania who survived an assassination attempt by shooting back at his would-be killers who fled. The story is told with needless cross-dressing and lesbianism with Teresa Russell as the king. Verdi is used again in The Force Of Destiny (La Forza Del Destino) aria which is presented by Charles Sturridge as three children joyriding in a stolen car that they then set fire to. That’ all we get from him. Wagner’s Tristan & Isolde is used to depict a couple making love in a tawdry motel before committing suicide in the bath together – a tragedy devoid of back-story. The lady is played by Bridget Fonda in her first ever movie appearance. Derek Jarman has Tilda Swinton starring in a sequence with an aging opera diva recalling home movie style memories of happier days with her lover on a beach as he performs on stage. Set to Charpentier’s Louise. The music is perfect and more than half of the film is too, in a highly ambitious but flawed project that is so rarely taken up by movie makers. Arthur Chappell