There’s a reason Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard is one of the greatest films ever made. Through Norma Desmond, Wilder not only explored the greatest fears and regrets of an artist but also how they cannot survive without narcissism and self-assurance. Norma’s butler, Max Von Mayerling, leaves behind his own existence because he knows Norma wouldn’t live another day if he weren’t there to remind her constantly what a great artist she had been. But you see, no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t make a “comeback.” It’s a bitter awakening for an artist, one they don’t want to hear, and that’s why Mayerling did his best to protect Norma from the real world, and especially from her own self. The story of Pablo Larrain’s Maria is no different.
Netflix’s film takes a look at the life of the greatest opera singer of her time behind closed doors… the doors Maria Callas failed to close. The grief, the regret, and everything else she couldn’t make peace with, and throughout the film, she’d been trying to revisit those memories. Maria keeps telling everyone around that she’s writing an autobiography, but the truth is, she’s actually living it by letting the best and worst moments of her life unfold before her eyes. You see, Maria isn’t the kind of film that has a conventional story. It sure does have some heartbreaking moments as it tries to explore what killed Maria in the end.
Spoiler Alert
Why Did Maria Want to Sing Again?
I guess it’s common knowledge that an artist often leads a double life. Back in the day, everyone knew who La Callas was because they had seen her perform on stage, but the tragedy was, no one really knew who Maria was. In the film, the camera often tried to pass through the door between La Callas and Maria, and for a very brief moment, we got to know who she actually had been and the things that tormented her during the last days of her life. The film began with the death of Maria on 16th September 1977, but the truth was La Callas had died a long time before. It’s actually a tragedy for an artist that their life ceases to exist the moment they stop performing, which proves the fact that La Callas died when she last performed four-and-a-half years ago. During the last days of her life, Maria tried to revive the voice inside her, but it turned out she was too weak to sing again. Her physical health had taken a toll on her art, and no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t sing like she used to.
Every day, Maria would visit the local theater, because she wanted to revive her voice, as she wanted to sing her “Blackbird” song or the human song before dying, and that’s the only thing that had been keeping her alive. She just wanted to sing for herself before going away. Somewhere, at the end of the second act, Maria’s sister, Yakinthi Callas, told her that her singing was going to take her life, but Maria wasn’t afraid of death. She was afraid of not being able to prove to the world that she still had the fire in her. Her entire life, Maria had sung for others. She sang to get validation from her mother and the audience; later, she sang to rebel against her lover, Aristotle Onassis, who forbade her to sing. But now, she just wanted to do it for herself.
Who Was Mandrax?
Named after the hypnotic sedative commonly marketed as a sleeping pill, Mandrax, the television interviewer, was a figment of Maria’s imagination, with whom she often talked to revisit the memories of her past. She told him how she didn’t want to cling to the past anymore and had tried her best to burn the bridges, but the truth was, Maria, till the very end, wasn’t able to close those doors to her past life that traumatized her. Maria kept on popping the Mandrax pills because she had trouble sleeping at night, but the addictive drug had its own side effects. Maria started to hallucinate and started talking to people who didn’t exist. And since the house help, Ferruccio, and the housemaid, Bruna, knew that the pills were taking a toll on Maria’s physical and mental health, they would often try to get rid of the pills Maria would hide away from them. Even Doctor Fontainebleau told Maria that all these pills had made her liver weak, and they were now having an adverse effect on her heart, but Maria refused to listen to anyone. Ferruccio and Bruna wanted to help her, but they didn’t want to break Maria’s feeble heart, and therefore played along till the very end. Also, I am not exactly sure why Maria kept asking Ferruccio to move the piano, but maybe she wanted to suggest that she was in control of her life. However, if there was more to it than that, then please do let me know in the comments below, as I am quite curious to find out about it.
And, last but not least, I guess, the fictional Mandrax looked a bit like a young Onassis, so maybe the reason why Maria imagined someone like him, and not anyone else, is because she wanted to meet Onassis before she married her husband, Giovanni Battista Meneghini. Maybe she believed that they would have had a chance in life to end up together if they met at the right time. And Maria’s love for Onassis could be better understood from the fact that he was the one who often visited her dreams during the last days of her life, and not her husband. In the end, Mandrax too disappeared with Maria as she finally sang “The Human Song” of her life and performed for one last time.
Who Sent the Pills to Maria?
The film revealed that it was Maria’s sister, Yakinthi, who used to send the Mandrax pills as she knew what her sister had been going through. Now, I am not sure if Yakinthi came to visit Maria at the end of the film, but she did ask her to close the doors and not be a prisoner of her memories anymore. Yakinthi knew that Maria’s obsession with music was what was going to take her life in the end, and this was the reason why she begged her to just let it go, because things cannot ever be the same as before. Well, you tell an artist that they cannot perform like they used to, and they would literally prove you wrong with their life, and that’s what Maria did in the end.
Why did Maria hate her mother?
Pablo Larrain’s film suggested that Maria had shifted from New York to Athens with her mother and sister. During the Second World War, her mother tried selling her daughters to the German soldiers for money, for which Maria and Yakinthi despised their mother throughout their lives. The thing is, Pablo Larrain’s film wasn’t concerned about these real-life details, rumors, or hearsay, but more importantly wanted to portray how Maria struggled with those things and how it affected her mental health during the last days of her life. Furthermore, Maria’s mother had also called her “fat and unlovable,” which was the reason why Maria stopped eating later in life, because she wanted to become “pretty and lovable” so that her mother, along with millions of other people, would accept her. She had always suffered from an existential crisis, and eventually music gave her the identity she had always yearned for, but in the end, even that was taken away from her because of her failing physical health.
Why Didn’t Maria Marry Her Lover?
The second act of the film also shed light on an important truth in Maria’s life: she started a clandestine affair with Onassis and also got pregnant with his child, though no one really knows what happened to the baby. In the film, Maria told Mandrax that she didn’t marry Onassis because the man wanted to control her life, just like her mother, and she didn’t want to fall for that trap once again. Additionally, she didn’t have a baby because her body declined the invitation to make another self, which suggests that she might have had a miscarriage. Later in the film, Maria could sense Onassis’ attraction towards the first lady of the United States. This was the reason why she tried to tell John F. Kennedy of his wife’s secret affair with Onassis, because Maria didn’t want to lose Onassis, but it turned out theirs had always been a doomed love story to begin with. Onassis and Maria came from two different worlds, and even though they loved each other and continued their secret affair till the very end, they couldn’t be together.
How Did Maria Die?
You know the reason why Ferruccio and Bruna didn’t want Maria to leave the house: because they were afraid that, sooner or later, she would come across someone like Ronald, the music columnist for Le Figaro newspaper, who wouldn’t try to understand Maria’s mental health and the things she was going through. These journalists and reporters are not exactly the people from whom you would expect any kind of sympathy. Everyone in Maria’s inner circle knew that she couldn’t sing like she used to, yet they would call her performances “magnificent or excellent” because they didn’t want to break her heart, as they feared she might take her life if she was confronted with the truth. Meanwhile, Maria, whenever she performed in the film, imagined herself on stage reminiscing about her past performances, because it was kind of obvious she wanted to perform like before. And this was the reason why she had asked Ferruccio to bring a tape recorder, as she wanted to see how much she had really progressed, as the people around her were too afraid to speak the truth.
In Maria’s ending, when she finally heard her voice on the tape recorder, Maria realized that there wasn’t any hope left for her. No matter what you do in life, you cannot bring back the past, and sometimes that’s both a boon and a curse. The next morning, Maria didn’t get out of bed, and as soon as Ferruccio and Bruna left the house to shop, Maria sang her heart out, imagining a whole orchestra playing for her. I am not sure if this last performance was real or just another figment of Maria’s imagination, but to those who really wanted to hear, it was the most honest performance she ever gave, because it was the first time in her life when Maria sang for herself and not for anyone else. She died of a heart attack soon after. But the truth is, she finally achieved what she had set out to do. She once again brought La Callas back to life one last time, even though she had to pay for it with her life.
