Ben Kingsley is the extraordinary protagonist of Dalìland by Mary Harron, an unpublished portrait of Salvador Dalì photographed in his old age, between fear of death and psychological dependence on his wife and muse Gala. From today, May 25, at the cinema with Plaion Pictures.
Anyone who loves cinema, but is not an expert in art history, knows Salvador Dali per An Andalusian dog e Golden ageboth made together with Luis Bunuel. To these works we must add the collaboration with Alfred Hitchcockwho turned to the painter for the dream scene of I will save you.
Without wondering if it is more famous Hitchcock o Dalí, we want to tell you about the latter, who with his amazed expression, his upturned mustache and his watches that melt like Camembert in the sun has entered the collective imagination by force. What many almost certainly don’t know about him is that he had a dark side, an underlying restlessness that at a young age was synonymous with rebellion and nonconformism, while in the last part of his life it turned into existential angst and a vulnerability nourished by hypochondriasis and fear of abandonment.
Just the painful old age of Salvador Dali is at the center of Dalilandan original biopic directed by Mary Harron and starring Ben Kingsley. The interesting thing about the film is that the point of view of the story is that of a young assistant Dalía boy named James who, in New York in 1974, helps the artist set up an exhibition. Suddenly James finds himself catapulted into the extravagant “circus” of Dalí: beautiful women, intellectuals, longtime friends and his wife’s lovers Gala (Barbara Sukowa). Daliland arrives in theaters today, May 25, and we invite you to go and see it to fully understand the figure of Dalí and get to know aspects of it that perhaps you didn’t know.
Salvador Dali: a biography
The existence of Salvador Dali was truly unique and daring, first of all because the painter was lucky enough to start painting in one of the most beautiful eras ever artistically speaking, and that is the time of the early twentieth-century avant-gardes, which rejected the academy and naturalism and considered art a peaceful instrument of protest. The various “isms” also aimed at the deconstruction of every form of language and at a personal and “emotional” representation of reality.
Born in Figueres in 1984, Salvador Dali he was lucky enough to first attend the local art school and then, in Madrid, the Academia de San Fernando, from which he was expelled after having ruled that no teacher had the tools to evaluate his works. Dalí was influenced by Cubism and Dadaism, but in his works exhibited in Barcelona critics also recognized the love for Raffaello, Vermeer e Diego Velasquez. In Paris, then, Dalí made friends with Pablo Picasso, which he always considered a model to inspire. After that the artist devoted himself to cinema, flying the Surrealist flag. He knew Gala and in 1931 he created his most famous painting: The persistence of memory. From 1936 he participated in the International Surrealist Exhibition in London, met fame and fortune in New York and then broke with the Surrealists, who accused him of crypto-fascism. During the Second World War, Dalí moved to the United States and wrote a film, Wave of lovewhich he would have liked to have interpreted a John Gabin. Ever more devoted to Catholicism, he spent the latter part of his years in his beloved Catalonia, taking an interest in optical illusions and science. He did not disdain advertising and the famous Chupa Chups logo is due to him. In 1980 his health suffered a severe blow when Gala, suffering from dementia, administered a cocktail of drugs that had a devastating effect on him. In 1988 Dalí he was hospitalized for a heart attack and died in ’89, of another heart attack, while listening to his favorite work: Tristan and Isolt Of Richard Wagner.
Dali and Gala
If it is true that behind every great man there is a great woman, then we must ascribe some credit to the magnificent works of Dalí a Galato the century Elena Ivanovna Diakonova. The two met in 1929, when the painter invited a series of illustrious characters to spend the summer in Spain, in his house in Cadaqués. The poet was also part of the happy brigade Paul Eluardwho was the husband of Gala and that, unaware of what would happen shortly thereafter, he decided to take her with him. Between Gala e Salvador it was immediately love, despite the ten-year difference, and she left her husband and daughter, to then marry the painter civilly in 1934. Gala she followed her husband on his travels, influenced his art and became his manager. Dalí he could not do without her and often said: “I love Gala more than my mother, more than my father, more than Picasso and even more than money”. In the 1950s the couple experienced a moment of crisis, but then, in 1958, they married in the church in 1958. Ten years later, Gala received the castle of Púbol as a gift from her husband. In 1982 Gala he died. A few months earlier, aware that he would soon lose his beloved, Salvador he asked that two adjacent tombs be built separated by a small space, so as to allow him and Gala to hold hands beyond death.
Dalíland: portrait of an imperfect man
In Daliland Mary Harron it dwells, as is natural, on the relationship between Salvador Dali e Gala, who however seem very far from the two lovers of the past. The director is not afraid to hint at the sexuality of the painter, who enjoyed looking above all else. Galainstead, she appears as a huntress. We know that her libido was quite high and in the film we see her grooming young artists to act as both a lover and a mentor. Daliland furthermore lingers on the fears of Salvador Daliwho fears tetanus due to an invisible cut on his finger. Salvador he is old and run down, and prey to a terrible horror vacui. The only way he has to exorcise the terror of death is to live above the lines.
Without taking away space from Sir Ben Kingsley, Mary Harron let the film dwell on those who populate the “court of miracles” of Dalíyes Amanda Lear ad Alice Cooper. The painter’s young assistant initially becomes passionate about the bohemian life that the master allows him to lead, but then he realizes that Dalí he looks like a capricious boy who, behind the self-centeredness that leads him to say: “Sometimes it’s very difficult to be Dalì”, there is an extreme fragility, combined with the awareness that, without Gala and his closest friends, the doors of the asylum would open for him. The director is brave to show the Dalí more lost, the old lion that no longer roars as it once did. At the forgets interested in what the painter’s wild theatricality hides, as well as behind the scenes of his luxurious parties at the Hotel St. Regis. Dalíwho also had a very high opinion of himself, falters, becomes imperfect, and in this imperfection the human side of the artist is captured.
> Dalìland awaits you at the cinema from today 25 May.
