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Rate five things you know, from any shelf. Your archetype shows up in about a minute, and gets sharper with every log.
Action, Drama, Thriller 117 min R
Rotten Tomatoes97%IMDb
Her voice was his calling.
Jules, a young Parisian postman, secretly records a concert performance given by the opera singer Cynthia Hawkins, whom he idolises. The following day, Jules runs into a woman who is being pursued by armed thugs. Before she is killed, the woman slips an audio cassette into his mail bag...
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Plot-driven, meticulous, spare and grave.
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That fact that I could listen to the “Ebben? Ne andrò lontana” aria from “La Wally” all day helps gets this off to a cracking start, and then we have a young fan in the form of moped postie “Jules” (Frédéric Andréi) - a lad with a distinctly Jean-Pierre Aumont look to him, who manages to make a sneaky recording. Why sneaky? Well that’s because the singer, “Cynthia Hawkins” (Wilhelmina Fernandez) hates recordings and so has never made a record. The star-struck “Jules” goes backstage after the performance for an autograph, has a quick chat with her before managing to steal her silk gown and heading back to his apartment in a derelict old garage. Here he has some state of the art audio equipment that powerfully reproduces the beauty of her singing. What he doesn’t know, though, is that an altercation we saw earlier on the streets has resulted in a murder and the perpetrators are all part of a white slavery business trading from North Africa. It seems the victim had made a cassette identifying the ring-leader and she plonked this in his mail pouch. Now we have two tales, and that helps sow seeds of confusion as the plot expands and he finds himself in quite a bit of peril. First off, t
Read the whole review on TMDB**A very experimental film in terms of visuals and aesthetics, but one that disappoints us due to the poor conception of the characters and the lack of harmonization of the plot.** This film harmoniously brings together two arts that I greatly value: cinema, of course, and opera, which for me is the most complete, challenging and versatile stage art that exists. Although the film is not about opera and is far from perfect, it is delightful to hear Wilhelmenia Fernandez's melodious voice. Unfortunately, the script could have been better: there are a number of rough edges that should have been polished. Jean-Jacques Beineix gives us a stylized work, with notes of artistic quality, however, the story he tells us has problems: it all starts with a fan's curious obsession with his favorite opera singer. After stealing the dress she wore during a recital, he becomes friends with a young Vietnamese woman who steals records from a music store. Shortly afterwards, their paths cross with a group of dangerous killers who claim victims in public, disguised as police officers. After some more time, the opera singer finally meets her obsessed fan and becomes friends with him. That is, what we ha
Read the whole review on TMDBDespite the ridiculous premise, namely the idea of Taiwanese gangster trying to get a hold of a bootleg recording of an opera singer (to blackmail her to signing a contract with them), the movie is better than I thought it would be going in. There are a couple big downsides that keeps me from giving it a higher rating. One is that this opera singer (Cynthia) finds solace with a young postman (Jules) who is pretty much a stalker (who stole her dress after a performance). The other bigger issue, is one dubious hero is a child predator who has a girl, easily only 13-14 years old, living with him. They don't explicitly show a sexual relationship but it's implied. I know this is France in the early 80s, just made me uncomfortable. Still, some decent scenes, one a chase through Paris and the Metro, that makes it worthwhile and oddly, the relationship between Jules and Cynthia still works in spite of how they meet. Also noteworthy is the beautiful cinematography, some wonderful images. **3.5/5**
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