'Dalida' is a biopic of Yolanda Gigliotti, a former Miss Egypt of Italian stock, who - although I had never heard of her before seeing this film at the 2017 Edinburgh International Film Festival - achieved great success as a singer and actress in the 1950s-80s.
With a couple of nods to her childhood in Cairo (which seemed to consist mainly of her grizzling), the story opens as the young woman sings in a radio variety show. From then on the film could be a TV movie adaptation of a Danielle Steel novel: the overnight success, the glamorous love affairs, the scandal, the suicide attempts... if it were not based on true events it would be easy to dismiss this film as being extremely predictable.
I would have appreciated more explanation about certain things: why, for instance, was it necessary for the baby Yolanda to have her eyes bound for forty days? And why - after the huge success of a concert in which she moved into disco - do we next see her, a few years later, alone and suicidal in her Paris home - what happened in the interim to bring her to this low? Other things struck me as odd: for instance, would a woman going for an abortion really wear full face make-up to do so?
I probably would have appreciated the film more if I were familiar with Dalida's music. As it is, I was surprised by the number of French-language songs she sang that were familiar to me in their English language versions; and I am now haunted by the emotional 'Je suis malade', which is gorgeous - in fact, the music is probably the best reason to watch this film.
With a couple of nods to her childhood in Cairo (which seemed to consist mainly of her grizzling), the story opens as the young woman sings in a radio variety show. From then on the film could be a TV movie adaptation of a Danielle Steel novel: the overnight success, the glamorous love affairs, the scandal, the suicide attempts... if it were not based on true events it would be easy to dismiss this film as being extremely predictable.
I would have appreciated more explanation about certain things: why, for instance, was it necessary for the baby Yolanda to have her eyes bound for forty days? And why - after the huge success of a concert in which she moved into disco - do we next see her, a few years later, alone and suicidal in her Paris home - what happened in the interim to bring her to this low? Other things struck me as odd: for instance, would a woman going for an abortion really wear full face make-up to do so?
I probably would have appreciated the film more if I were familiar with Dalida's music. As it is, I was surprised by the number of French-language songs she sang that were familiar to me in their English language versions; and I am now haunted by the emotional 'Je suis malade', which is gorgeous - in fact, the music is probably the best reason to watch this film.