Having a thing about Paris in the very early 80s, somehow Diva (1981), Jean-Jacques Beineix’s modish thriller, adapted from Daniel Odier’s novel, exemplifies all that is right about the City of Lights. It’s very French, or more accurately, it’s very Parisian. There’s the most beautiful sequence: Jules (the hero), played by the eminently likeable Frédéric Andréi, wanders through the silvery, early morning, rainy streets of Paris with Cynthia Hawkins (Wilhelmenia Fernandez), an American opera star who’s the object of his obsession. And it’s accompanied by Vladimir Cosma’s splendid pastiche of Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie — Promenade sentimentale. Just so right for Paris and this particular scene. It’s really affecting.

Diva (1981) was one of the first French films to abandon the realism of the 1970s, and return to a more colourful, slick, visual style, known as Cinéma du Look. It’s not only ‘gorgeous’, but also stars moody, alienated youth; gloomy — if stylish — interiors and a mixture of high brow art and pop culture. “Style over substance” some said at the time. Along similar lines, look out for Luc Besson’s Subway (1985), another trend-setting film of the day.

Jules, a young uniformed postman, develops a weird obsession with Cynthia Hawkins, an American opera star. This he manages to pull off without seeming too creepy, despite nicking Cynthia's dress during a signing session and then persuading a Lady of the Night he's picked up in the Rue Saint-Denis to put it on for him during sex. Today he would be described as 'an audiophile', and in 2025, one, perhaps, might see him sharing his obsessions with the rest of the world via his very own nerdy YouTube channel. Instead, back in 1981, he has to make do with a ginormous, semi-derelict warehouse apartment — stuffed full of the latest expensive hi-fidelity equipment, a collection of choice classical LPs, and Pop Art wall murals of 50s American cars and pointy, girly pin-ups in tight rubber suits, that sort of thing — like Allen Jones. Dead trendy in 1981, that. Incredibly hip. How he can afford all this splendour on a postman's salary is anybody's guess (unless, of course, everything’s nicked), but don't let mere trivialities get in our way. Hey, it’s the Cinéma du Look !

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