Kodi Smit-McPhee

Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain’s visually sumptuous fantasy about formidable Maria Callas begins in September, 1977, with a poignant death scene in her luxurious apartment in Paris, punctuated by her singing “Ave Maria (Desdemona)” from Verdi’s Otello.. Don’t expect meticulously researched details of a traditional biography. Instead, there are fragmentary flashbacks: Born in New York to Greek parents, Maria as a poor, fat teenager in Athens…Glorious ovations at La Scala…Her nomadic nine-year affair with predatory Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer), who paraded her like a trophy yet abruptly left her to marry widowed Jacqueline Kennedy.

The Maria in question is not the lovelorn young woman in West Side Story. Not the object of affection in B. W. Stevenson’s hit song. Not the nun turned baroness in The Sound of Music. But all could describe Maria Callas, the ill-fated opera singer who overcame a difficult childhood, became a world class diva and broke many hearts along the way, including her own.
Maria follows the famed soprano’s final seven days in 1977, as she struggles to stage a comeback to her illustrious career amid debilitating health concerns. It’s the third installment of director Pablo Larrain’s “Lady in Heels” trilogy following Jackie, about former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Spencer, about the life of Princess Diana. Larrain is not a mainstream filmmaker. He is an artist. His set designs and costumes are fit for a queen. His stories are more melancholy and brooding. Emotional without the sugar coating.

The passionately crafted Maria extols the significance of celebrated opera singer Maria Callas in an intriguing introspective way. Director Pablo Larrain’s unconventional biographical drama takes place during the last days of Callas’ life in Paris, when she was 53. She died on Sept. 16, 1977, from a heart attack. This is the Chilean director’s third complex portrait of iconic 20th century women, following Jackie on First Lady Jackie Kennedy after her husband’s shocking assassination, and Spencer, about Princess Diana before she decided to leave her troubled royal marriage. In all three, he reimagined their glamorous life in public and their turbulent life in private, all through a lens that blurred reality. Perhaps Callas is the least known of the three, but this film feels the most complete.