Daliland | Dir: Mary Harron | ★ ★ ★ ★
It was 25 years ago that Mary Harron splashed the eccentricities of the art world all over the big screen with her film I Shot Andy Warhol. Now she draws inspiration from the later years of surrealist genius Salvador Dali, beginning in 1974 when he was living in a New York Hotel.
Dali (Ben Kingsley) and his Russian-born wife Gala (Barbara Sukowa) had taken up residence in the luxurious St Regis Hotel and Dali’s lavish parties were a magnet for beautiful people including his latest muse Amanda Lear (trans actor Andreja Pejić) and struggling musician Alice Cooper (Mark McKenna).
Newcomer to the hedonistic Daliland is young gallery assistant James (Christopher Briney) who Dali renames San Sebastian. He has been assigned as Dali’s assistant to make sure Dali completes a certain amount of paintings for an upcoming exhibition in three weeks’ time, an exhibition that will save Dali from financial ruin.
James later travels to Spain with the narcissistic artist who reverts to child-like helplessness on occasions, and his shrewish wife who is siphoning off money to support her young lover – Jeff Fenholt (Zachary Nachbar-Sechel) who is playing Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway. When Dali’s life is seen through James’s eyes, it is in equal parts dazzlingly joyous, tragically sad and continually chaotic.
It is in flashbacks to when a brooding young Dali (Ezra Miller) first met the out-going young Gala (Avital Lvova) that we see the beginnings of their life-long relationship and also Dali’s frailty. In a surreal touch, James and the older Dali both watch the flashbacks unfold within the scenes.
Apart from the fact that Dali’s artworks are not seen for legal reasons, I think that one of the most memorable scenes in the film is when the young Dali shows the young Gala his Melting Clocks painting (known as The Persistence of Memory). She says that once a person has seen the painting, they will never forget it.
Lezly Herbert
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