Daliland

“Dali needs a few hundred live ants, some dead grasshoppers, four dwarves, and a suit of armour — Spanish armour.”
“For a painting?”
“No… a party.”

This is James’s job: assistant to a renegade genius. We are in New York City in 1974. Dali (Ben Kingsley) winters at the St. Regis. His longtime muse and constant companion Gala (Barbara Sukowa) handles the money and any boytoy she can get a hold of. Fair to say they have seen better days, but these superannuated septuagenarian surrealists still know how to command the scene. As for James (Christopher Briney) he’s never seen anything like it, but he’s completely dazzled… perhaps a bit like director Mary Harron, whose previous cine-portraits have included Valerie Solanas (I Shot Andy Warhol), The Notorious Bettie Page, Anna Nicole Smith, and Charles Manson (Charlie Says)… as well as the (fictional) American Psycho. Fame, love, ego, art, life’s merry go round in full swing.

On Saturday June 10th the VIFF Centre will host an exhibition of Dali art works presented by the Chali-Rosso Gallery

It’s a portrait of the artist as whatever-happened-to? relic. On that score, it’s both a highly entertaining movie and, by the end, a haunting one. It revels in Dalí’s artifice even as it mercilessly peels away his layers.

Owen Gleiberman, Variety

Entertaining and genuinely eye-opening.

John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter

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