It’s hard to believe but Angelina Jolie has not starred in a movie for the past three years. One could think that this was simply a phase for her, but Angelina Jolie has been withdrawing from the spotlight for much longer than that. Retiring from public appearances, and partly, from the characters she plays on the big screen, it seems that her wild days are behind her. And for good reason! The star has no inclination towards her old self; instead of being the “love-struck” or “wild” character, she appears to be a grounded filmmaker, a mother of six children, and a human rights’ activist. The last time she actually appeared on-screen was a decade ago when she expressed her voice in the animated movie Kung fu Panda, and even then, she takes on characters where she’s confined to a few scenes and is often a mix of beauty and tragedy. While one cannot blame Ms. Jolie for creating distance between herself and the public, it becomes tiresome to constantly see the same side of her.
At her peak, she is captivating, a performer who can suddenly step into the shot and make you feel she is going to tear the audience apart. In her latest ventures, even when she is barging through enormous wall flames, one still feels that she is there only in a quarter.
This tendency is present in the new film Maria, directed by Pablo Larrain from Chile where Angelina Jolie plays the acclaimed opera singer Maria Callas. The role is one of her most challenging for quite some time, and yet it hardly comes across as a return to the scene as she is now, for the first time in quite a long career, more of a supportive figure than the main star. The role comes with a lot of features which are supportive of its authenticity including the fact that Jolie underwent months of operatic training, and her own voice mingled with that of Callas’ mask whenever she has to perform on stage as her character does. Even so, there is something quite cold about what Jolie, in particular, does on the screen that is almost a degree that makes it seem as if she is a woman in something who is being a woman in something who is being Maria Callas. Some of that is purposeful — Maria is the last film in a trilogy by Larrain that started with Jackie featuring Natalie Portman as Jackie Onasis and the second with Kirsten Stewart as Diana, and although it is a the least powerful of the three themes, it is, as the other two, with image forming themes as well.
It’s Maria who aches to sing like she once did years ago while living in Paris. She has not been on stage for years now, but she still performs, be it crooning an opera song to her maid Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher) in the kitchen or acting out for an acute TV reporter meme, Kodi Smit-McPhee who cherished her meetings with the diva but left backstage due to reality line adjustments.
The corresponding ‘archaeology of images’ could be traced in all of Larryaucins works considering the hubris of thinking that artistic pieces are universal. But even the work of art can become an insatiable weapon or prison, as all three of these Larraín films do not attempt to shy away from the argument on the merits of being completely daft, and yet aspire to treat the subject with the seriousness that realistically is required of them. However, in this power struggle, Maria has the most obstacles to accomplish that in-between area and in this case, who is the overpowering subject. According to the filmmakers, it is the central subject whose life mainly revolved on the idea of being a ‘people pleaser’. The plot oscilates between the miniature productions comprising the ‘day in the life of’ Maria of the year 1977 and productions of her as an actress from the past. The designs and the display has its limitations of being performance as there is no anatomical essence of the role other than the theatrical dressing and extravagant casuals. Steven Knight’s purplish screenplay has this effect of writing that when reading the script the actors speak and the most interesting snippets are left for the film trailer. Feruccio (Pierfrancesco Favino) – the butler and the other reject man who’s always been around Maria as well as Bruna – has a question he asks while trying to make sure he can keep a close eye on his mistress’s hand with the pills: “What did you write?” ’I had a great sense of freedom and the world has had a great sense of freedom as well,” she replies.
When her son Feruccio finally arranges for Maria to go to see the doctor she has been running away from, that doctor tells her rather reassuringly, ‘I want to have a conversation with you about life and death. About sanity and insanity.’
Is Maria mad? She is supposed to be hysterical — running away from her over-caring household staff, making a nuisance of herself in restaurants, and fantasizing about having an interview with Smit-McPhee — quite an appropriate name for her favorite sleeping pills — while talking to a pianist (Stephen Ashfield) who might not even be real anyway and whom she is trying to find her voice with. And still, the viewer seems to wonder, Maria is made extremely careful of her lead character and the actress playing her – what is there, it turnings out, to be enjoyed despite the painful aspects of having an opera diva smashing everything in her changing room looking for three remaining Quaaludes.
Jolie appears fascinating in the movie; she has angular cheekbones and a blooming love for brocade housecoats, has even a divine eye flick and a beehive in the cat flashbacks, where she recalls her romance with Aristotle Onassis Haluk Bilginer. Incredibly as well does miss Maria, thanks to DOP Edward Lachman, who made 70s Paris look precisely like a shabby postcard, with Larraín even imagining fantasy sequences featuring choirs seemingly appearing from the audience at the Place du Trocadero and orchestras soaking on the terraces in downpours. And yet, in spite of the apparent time and energy invested into the creation of this character Maria, there is such a shortage of vitality. For a moviemaker’s walkthrough performance that is made to be dutifully recognized for its courage, there is no sense of anything being ventured.
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