Maria 4K 2024 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

September 1977. Maria Callas, a world-famous opera diva in early retirement, lives in a luxurious Parisian apartment with two poodles, a cook and a butler. The job of the first, in addition to cooking, is to give Maria compliments. The second moves a huge grand piano around the house for her from morning to night, counts her pills, picks her up from restaurants and tries to convince her to talk to a specialist instead of hallucinations.

Review 4K Movie

When it comes to biographical pictures, the creators should have one goal - to familiarize the audience with the life story of this or that historical figure. With details, details, details. That is, to present viewers with a visual version of a page in Wikipedia. A person after viewing should get the fullest possible idea of life, character, key events that influenced the formation, development, fate, model of behavior and so on. In this case, we are talking about Maria Callas - a world-famous opera singer.

'Maria' is an alternative and truly festival movie. The director's, and perhaps Jolie's own, vision of the last week of Callas's life has resulted in a narrative that is stretched to the point of being slow but also lacking in substance. Yes, in flashbacks we will see fragments of Maria Callas' performances, her acquaintance with her unhappy love Aristotle Onassis, her youth during the occupation of Greece, but very little screen time was given to these important events. Not enough for the viewer to understand, to feel how much they affected the psycho-emotional state of the singer. And they affected them significantly. That and demonstrated Angelina Jolie his game. But about this a little later.

In fact, the viewer really, literally, will see how the last days of Callas's life. In company with herself, her feelings, experiences, hallucinations (this is not a spoiler, if anything), butler and cook. Maria's past the screenwriters revealed sparingly, devoting the maximum screen resource to Jolie-Callas herself. This is my personal opinion: I learned much more about the world opera star from Wikipedia than from the movie. And that's not how it should be.

Now as for Angelina Jolie's acting. Yes, I read that many people did not perceive her as Callas, seeing only Jolie. In a way, this is really true. I got the impression that the actress was more interested in presenting an autobiography than a biography of Callas. But personally, that didn't stop me from appreciating her acting talent. For the umpteenth time. Stately gait, majestic but cold look, hiding the experience of the tragedy of her life, the intensity of emotions exactly in those moments when it was necessary and justified - Angelina very accurately conveyed the inevitability, despair, inner emptiness of a person for whom the only value was music, singing, applause and recognition. And since she was deprived of all this, the escape from reality, depression, pills - it is quite an adequate, understandable reaction to the loss. And this Jolie demonstrated brilliantly.

In general, this picture permeates the atmosphere of human striving to return the lost. Even if such attempts can harm health. I personally perceived 'Maria' from this angle. The desire to cling to something that will keep you afloat at least for a while. Let them lie to you. Let you create an illusion in which you are at least somewhat comfortable, even though there is a clear understanding that you are deceiving yourself. But you do it consciously. Only to keep some semblance of a past life, because you don't have a real one. This is all Angelina Jolie has conveyed at the highest level.

'Maria' is not a spectacular, fast-paced biopic. The movie is more about emotion, tragedy than biography. Tragedy cannot be an interesting spectacle. It's important to realize that.

I liked the relationship between Callas and the butler and the cook (her only friends in fact). They loved her, worried about her. Even though it was just their job. That's the interaction I'd reveal a bit more too, since it's not about the biography. Not about her in the broad sense of the word, of the term.

It is quite possible that the actress herself faced similar feelings, emotions, in connection with which she decided to emphasize exactly on the emotional component of the last chapter of the singer's life. This is if indeed she acted as a second director. You can just feel her hand, director's eye. Remember 'Côte d'Azur'.

To summarize. To be honest, I didn't like the movie itself, but Angelina Jolie's performance pulled the sagging, let's say, plot out of the abyss of monotony and boredom. The Golden Globe nomination was well deserved. I'm sure she will be nominated for an Oscar too.