Maria

Chillian filmmaker Pablo Larrain delivers another intoxicating biopic about privileged women in peril. With Jackie (2016) and Spencer (2021), and now Maria, Larrain has now made a subgenre about wealthy, emotionally broken women. Like Jackie and Spencer, Maria is every bit as elegantly crafted and magnificent. The film is also intriciate, and Larrain proves that biopics can still be unconventional. Larrain has explored history before with Jackie, which starred Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy, who lives through grief during the aftermath of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and Larrain made the Royal Family engrossed with Spencer, which is a biopic about Princess Diana’s having the courage to distance herself from her husband and the Royal Family after scandalous rumors and tabloids begin to surface from her husband’s affair. Larrains historical subject in his latest film is Maria Callas, in which La Diva grants an exclusive TV interview with an aficionado of her music named Mandrax (Kodi Smit-McPhee).

Where Spencer and Jackie took placed over a course of a few days, Maria also covers the final days of her life, but they tap into more history as Larain utilizes more flashbacks and memories through Maria’s internalization. Larrain reunites with Spencer’s own screenwriter Stephen Knight (Eastern Promises), and this time Knight offers more layered structures, history, and flashbacks. This also allows Larrain to experiment with even more aesthetics, and cinematographer Edward Lachman (The Virgin Suicides, Far From Heaven) is tailored for Larran’s exemplary visual style. The production design and cinematography offer one ravishing sequence after the other, but it’s never hollow. The wrenching performance by Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas is astounding and the finest performance of her career. One that she pours her heart, soul, and vocal cords to. Jolie spent nearly a near training to sing the opera songs on display. It is Jolie’s voice you hear in the film that is blended with Callas herself. It’s a performance that aims for prestige, but Jolie and Larrain sharpen it to be something more genuine and personal. She will leave you gasping for air in her riveting performance.

Courtesy Netflix

Larrain and Knight explore Calla’s life as she is coerced into singing for SS soldiers during the horrific days of Nazi-occupying Athens. We also see beautifully staged Maria performing to sold-out crowds in concert halls across Europe. We also see her emotional bonds with her butler Ferruccio (Pierfrancesco Favino) and maid Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher), where she wants to enjoy her lunchtime in a public space and no longer cares if people come up to her. She lives out her final days with joy, from going to her favorite restaurants to getting a haircut with a hairdresser that doesn’t speak. She also has a visit with her old sister Yakinthi (Valeria Golinio), which is a very brief but poignant scene. Most of the journey chronicles Maria navigating through her luxury apartment and walking through the Jardin de Luxembourg gardens in Paris. We also get great moments where she practices with uncertainty as her self-esteem is belittled due to opera critics that follow and record her practice sessions that begrudge her performance and claim her talent has tainted.

Some of the greatest sequences are the opera ones. Both on an emotional and technical level, the opera sequences are intoxicating and recall the work of Kubrick and Polanski. Even Argento’s opera is recalled due to the impeccable staging. The visual energy of the film is lavish, in which every shot looks like a painting. Another astounding sequence is a cross-cutting sequence of Maria performing from inside her apartment to the streets of Paris. Another sequence involves a crosscutting sequence of Maria practicing in an empty auditorium to a full concert call to perfection, which empowered her to perform well after being confronted by a rude opera magazine journalist who questions her talent and current mental state. Larrain uses various film stocks in the film, bouncing between black-and-white and color to capture Maria’s psyche; with that Maria is more experimental by design.

Courtesy Netflix

The film’s ending is quite powerful, simply because you get completely swept away from Jolie’s commanding performances in which she dispatches her own vulnerabilities into the role of Maria Callas. The supporting players of Pierfrancesco Favino and Alba Rohrwacher are also well-established, as they are given a moving emotional payoff as Brian Eno’s “An Ending” plays beautifully in the background. Larrain presents Maria’s journey as a shattering one, one where even though she triumphed, she felt defeated due to her lack of confidence and depression. Even when her doctor informs her that she is killing her vocal cords, she carries on with her talent. Like Jackie and Spencer, you don’t necessarily walk out knowing more about the historical soprano, but Pablo Larrain immerses you into her journey, and you will walk out with even greater curiosity about this woman. Larrain brings that type of affection to Marie just as he did with Spencer, and this is quite a rewarding trilogy.

MARIA is now playing in limited theaters and will be streaming on Netflix on December, 11th 2024