Reel Monday Movie Nights returns Monday with an art film that courted critical controversy. Celebrated by some while panned by others, Dalíland follows the legendary painter in his advanced years. It is both an homage to a complicated artist and an exposé of art-world corruption.
Director Mary Harron, a wickedly gifted maverick, dissects Dalí’s life like a game of surrealist theatre. She looks at him after the height of his career as a celebrity and controversial genius. Sadly, she reveals Dali as a talented painter who morphed into a self-made brand whose artifice is peeled away in layers.
Set in 1973 in New York and Spain, Dalíland is told through the eyes of James (Christopher Briney), a young gallery assistant who is obliged to babysit the aging Dalí (Ben Kingsley). Briney is instructed to make sure Dalí paints and is ready for his New York exhibition.
Instead, Briney is drawn into the unconventional world of Dalí’s hedonistic lifestyle at the St. Regis Hotel where the artistic genius wears long hair, curls his moustache, and dresses in frilly shirts and long coats. It’s a world filled with a cocktail of drugs and booze, sexual ambiguity, bed-hopping vipers and hangers-on.
In a strange marriage to Gala (Barbara Sukowa), Dalí’s wife is caretaker, muse, agent, tormentor, and a sexual cougar who pushes Dali to paint. She is instrumental in creating the Spanish artist’s brand which morphs into a caricature of the legend.
Reel Monday Movie Nights is a fundraiser for Friends of St. Albert Public Library. The film is on Monday, April 22 at 7 p.m. at the Arden Theatre. Tickets for the film are $15 and are available at the door.
