The film "María", directed by Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín and starring Angelina Jolie, of the great soprano María Callas, was recently released on Netflix. It had its premiere at the 81st Venice International Film Festival and received a standing ovation from the public for almost 10 minutes.

María Callas, a soprano of Greek origin who was born in the United States, is considered the most relevant opera singer of the 20th century. It’s impossible not to admire her masterful respect for musical phrasing and the precision of tuning in the high notes when listening to her. When she was on stage, her acting skills also stood out, which thrilled the spectators who enjoyed her art.

The film "Maria" tells the story of Maria Callas' mental state in the last seven days of her life. According to the film's narrative, the diva was aware that these were her final moments, which she spent in a very fragile state, as she spent days without eating a single bite, and in addition, her liver and heart were compromised. Due to the continuous and excessive intake of sedatives, in her last days she had visual and very vivid hallucinations of being accompanied by orchestras and choirs in public places that sang or played for her, and also, of being interviewed for an imaginary television program by an also imaginary journalist, whom she named after Mandrax, one of the medications she was taking.

Before going into further detail about the character's features, I’d like to comment a little on the film. The photography is enjoyable, with its wide shots, of a beautiful autumnal Paris in which
the golden tones of the evening stand out, perhaps alluding to the end of La Divina's golden journey. On the other hand, Angelina Jolie's performance was sincere, warm, and at certain moments, truly moving.

The film tells us about Maria's inner world in her last moments of life, and the tone of these final moments is one of overwhelming nostalgia and sadness, since she was a singer with so much international success, who received so much acclamation. She was in the public eye and sang in the most important theatres in the world. To mention the artist's memories, Larraín uses a black and white photograph, and this past is presented in María's mind and for the viewer as beautiful, triumphant, and perfect. In the last week of her life, the singer did not have the voice she once had, partly because when she began a relationship with magnate Aristotle Onassis, he did not want her to sing in public, furthermore a public life of parties caused the great soprano's voice to deteriorate, and this led to the fact that when she wanted to return to the stage she was widely criticized by the public and the press.

On the other hand, in the film we see that the singer suffered too much, since she was anchored to that brilliant past that was impossible to return to.

Her identity was forged by all those professional achievements and María felt unable of reinventing herself as something other than being a singer. Therefore, if she did not sing, if she could not return to the stage and to an exultant public that acclaimed her, nothing had meaning anymore. Her life had no meaning.

That's why when the doctor in the film tells her of her fragile state and sincerely advises her that she can no longer sing, as that would result in her death, she decides that it was time to die.

The end of the film is especially moving, since in an act of bravery Callas dies singing, doing what she loved most in her life. However, this is an artistic twist given by Pablo Larraín, a truly exquisite tribute, since what’s known is that the soprano had a heart failure in her room.

The feature film describes a woman of strong character but at the same time very vulnerable, a woman who decided to live and die on her own terms, a sensitive and romantic woman, also an erratic and psychotic woman in her final days. A woman who found it impossible to separate herself from her desire to make music, as she preferred to lose her life than stop doing what she loved most.

Due to all the nuances of the human being that Larraín presents to us through "Maria", the beautiful photography and the excellent performance of Angelina Jolie, this film becomes a beautiful tribute to Callas.

In a televised interview conducted in 1973 with Maria Callas by Mike Wallace only 4 years before her death, we see her intention to return to the stage as shown in the feature film. In the interview, she is shown to be a woman of strong character and also very sincere in her answers. From there, we could already see the sadness in her eyes that she tried to hide with a confident smile, what she herself called "poker face".

Suffering is part of life itself, no matter how much success a person has had or how much money they have, and our strategies in the face of suffering are what save us or we can also choose to sink into it, as apparently happened with this extraordinary artist.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff