Jean-Jacques Beineix's Diva (1981)

Jean-Jacques Beineix's first feature, Diva, is seen by many critics as one of the first – if not the first – films of the Cinéma du look, of outsiders in Mitterrand's France, alternative cultures often seen in such films in the underground, and there's a notable chase sequence in the métro here. Raphael Bassan, in La Revue De Cinéma (1989), originally coined the term.

And the Cinéma du look has often been used to describe films that have more style than content, although Phil Powrie, in his book Jean-Jacques Beineix (2001), argues from a theoretical standpoint of Melanie Klein rather than Freud, that this is a mistaken position to take, and that Diva is very strong in content: interestingly, often, there's more interest in French cinema from English or Americans than Francophones, but then I suppose it's a question of sheer number coupled with the Anglophone world's fascination with French cinema.

I won't waste time talking about the plot, and this is in a sense a policier with a difference, but it was the first appearance for Dominique Pinon (as Le Curé), although Richard Bohringer (here as Gorodish, a kind of father figure to Jules (Frédéric Andréi)) had made a few minor cinematic appearances before.

I've only seen this twice, once completely ignorant, but I strongly suspect that this is a far more important movie than many have given it credit for.