STUDIO: Lionsgate
RELEASE DATE: June 3, 2008
STARRING: Frederic Andrei, Roland Bertin, Richard Bohringer, Gerard Darmon, Chantal Deruaz, Jacques Fabbri, Patrick Floersheim, Thuy an Luu, Jean-Jacques Moreau, Dominique Pinon, Anny Romano, and Wilhelmine Wiggins Fernandez
WRITTEN BY: Jean-Jacques Beineix and Jean Van Hamme
DIRECTED BY: Jean-Jacques Beineix
FEATURES: Scene-Specific Audio Commentary with Jean-Jacques Beineix
"Searching for Diva"

Lionsgate has quietly started to amass one of the most fascinatingly diverse release schedules on the market. There aren't many DVD houses releasing as insanely varied a slate as they have and will in just the first two weeks in June. On their TV side, they have such different shows as Weeds and The Dead Zone and their theatrical side encompasses everything from Witless Protection with Larry the Cable Guy to the Catherine Deneuve Collection and High Noon. Closer to the classic end of the spectrum of Lionsgate releases are the two titles that launched "The Meridian Collection" this week - the pretty well-known The Red Violin and the largely unheralded (and even better) Diva. Jean-Jacques Beineix's 1981 thriller is such an odd mixture of styles and ideas that it was ignored on its release and somewhat discarded by history for over two decades, but has started to grow a very loyal following in recent years. It's a cult classic. The remastered version even played in arthouse theaters last year and just hit DVD this week. If you're a fan of opera or French cinema, it's a must-see, a fascinating bridge between the New Wave and the current crop of films coming out of France.

Diva is one of those multi-layered drama/thrillers that a film class could study for weeks it has so much going on. Beineix cribs from Godard and Hitchcock to tell a classic story of a young man caught in a serious case of mistaken identity. But the mistake isn't real, it's Memorex. Jules (Frederic Andrei) is a moped-riding postman who's obsessed with an opera singer with an absolutely God-given voice (Wilhelmina Wiggins Fernandez). She believes in the purity of concerts and has never recorded anything, but the postman wants to take her voice home, so he records one of her shows. It's not for commerce. It's for love Near the same time, our hero happens to be near the scene of a murder and the victim places a cassette tape in his bag. Two recordings, one poor postman - tragic mix-ups are bound to ensue. There are chases, pairs of murderers, corrupt cops, beautiful women, and some of the most stunning cinematography of the age (it won the Cesar Award for it, along with music and directorial debut). Diva is a deeply fascinating film about various types of singing (on the tape, a woman "sings" on a corrupt cop and, of course, the other tape contains actual vocal gymnastics) and several different archetypal female roles - singer, model, prostitute, star, lover, partner. They're all divas.

One of the most remarkable things about Diva is that it doesn't look nearly 27 years old. It's a testament to the influence of the film that it really looks like it could have come out last year and the spectacular remastering of the video and audio on this DVD certainly help that cause. Warner Brothers has been the home for beautiful catalog releases (and theirs really are the standard), but it's nice that an unexpected studio like Lionsgate is finding underrated gems like Diva and giving them the classic, even if it is of the "cult" variety, treatment that they deserve. The special features include a scene-specific commentary with the director and an extensive documentary about the making of the film with modern interviews with many of the key players. It's called "Searching for Diva" on the actual special features menu, but it's also broken up into several chapters - "Interview with Jean-Jacque Beineix", "Interview with Director of Photography Philippe Rousselot", "Interview with Set Designer Hilton McConnico", "Additional Interviews with Cast and Crew", and "Introduction to interviews by Phil Powrie, Author of Jean-Jacques Beineix".