It will take some time for me to forget the unnecessary disaster that is Mary Harron‘s Dalíland (2022), not least as it was helmed by an otherwise highly inventive director of some of the most entertaining, original, artistically impeccable films of US indie-land nineties and noughties, as was I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), American Psycho (2000), and The Notorious Bettie Page (2005). To add insult to injury, it features thespian (literal) royalty, Sir Ben Kingsley (as Dalí) and the inimitable Barbara Sukowa (as Gala), plus a generally game cast — meandering in a film that should have been, at least, fun to watch.
Nevertheless, it turned out to be less than the sum of its parts, lacking a developed script and coherent directorial vision, dragging on to its inevitable demise — drowned in a patchwork of trivia.
So what went wrong? The Harron apologist in me would like to think that there must have been some kind of behind-the-scenes creative meddling, one which could have led such a clear-sighted director so terribly astray.
However, that would entail that some of what we see on-screen is quality filmmaking and, alas, none of it is.
So, the suits are off the hook (pun intended).
Where to start? Laying the fault at the feet of the genius turned showman, Salvador Dalí, would be an apt entry point, as the elaborately stylised, iconic and iconically flamboyant Spanish artist made it near-impossible to attempt at his biopic without a real danger of slipping into caricature.
Dalí, often referring to himself in the third person, had been infamously OTT at playing himself.
On the other hand, a biopic worth its salt would have dismantled and exposed this charade, not parodied it.
His ravenous theatrical flair shouldn’t have been at obstacle, either. Quite the contrary. The element of camp was in some ways the most authentic element of the Dalí act — as well as an integral part of his lifelong folie-a-deux with the other high-drama persona in the mix, Dalí’s wife Gala, no stranger to histrionic displays, herself.
Underneath the razzamatazz, the assembled art world, and high-society glitterati portrayed in Dalíland, collectively charging towards the disco-end of the 1970s, there must have been a great deal of actual human story to tell. There always is.
Maybe a different perspective would have helped? The celebrated artist is observed through the eyes of James Linton (Christopher Briney), a handsome but rather bland young newcomer, aimiably hustling his way up the big city art ladder, with an expression of bewilderment that does not change an inch throughout the film. This ambitious art dealer lands a dream job as Dalí’s assistant/nanny while the painter was staying in New York, acting as a buffer between a libidinous Gala, and a erotically charged but ineffectual Dalí, while being introduced to their exotic coterie.
All of which are supposed to be intriguing people, but come off as both incredibly superficial and abysmally dull.
And maybe they were exactly that, but a film about them should not be.
Gali and Dalí perpetually stage operatic fights, in the most telenovela way, and the sheer dismay at watching the talent of a Sukowa and a Kingsley go to such epic waste is further eclipsed by flashbacks in time, with Ezra Miller and Avital Lvova playing the lovers as young, picturesque, and equally annoying, in some sort of half-pantomime high-school presentation of the early surrealist movement.
We do not learn anything about Dali, Gala, their long-suffering associates, or the true toll of a life lived permanently on stage, which left the couple so eccentrically devoted to each other keeping up with the performance even in their most intimate moments — falling pray to the cult of the bankable image above all.
Dalíland is such a missed opportunity.
★☆☆☆☆
Author: ©Milana Vujkov
Lola On Film 