Dalida’s “Unbearable Life”: The Tortured Truth Behind the Curtain Call

By: Karim Mourtada
@ImKarimKop
Senior Caravan Critic

The 2017 French bio-pic Dalida, which depicts the dramatic and tragic life of the renowned singer and actress of the same name, is a beautifully melancholic production that delivers an emotional punch.

The film is written, directed and co-produced by French director Lisa Azuelos, and stars Italian rookie Sveva Alviti as Dalida.

Alviti impressively portrays Dalida’s charisma, beauty and flair all while showcasing the perfect combination of vulnerability and strength.

The movie presents how the starlet’s success as an entertainer was not enough to mask the failure of her personal life.

Dalida traces the events that narrate how the artist’s fast rise to fame and her string of failed relationships all slowly consumed her, leading to the deterioration of her mental health, and ultimately her suicide.

The pain and loneliness she felt is translated through the screen, one gut-wrenching scene after another.

Yolanda Cristina Gigliotti, better known as Dalida, was born in Cairo, Egypt on January 17, 1933.
Her family was from Serrastretta, Italy, and had immigrated to Egypt in the early 20th century.

The film opens with Dalida’s first suicide attempt in 1967 by drug overdose at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Paris.

Her suicide attempt comes a month following the suicide of her then lover Luigi Tenco.

This disturbing event marked the turning point in Dalida’s life.

Her depression continued to escalate while her glamorous life came sharper into focus.

This double entendre was delivered in the film through the heavy focus on flashy, colorful costumes and makeup that concealed her depression from the public eye.

A series of flashbacks are then shown to familiarize the audience with important figures in Dalida’s life, such as her former husband Lucien Morisse, who had also discovered her and fostered her raw talent.

A few months after her suicide attempt, Dalida became pregnant by a 22-year-old Italian literature student, Lucio, to whom the 1974 song Il Venait D’avoir 18 Ans (He Had Just Turned 18), was dedicated.

Dalida, however, decided to have an abortion – a decision that would render her infertile.

Having always dreamed of starting a family with her true love, this incident only aggravated her mental and physical decline, which was slowly but visibly incrementing in every passing scene.

After her personal life started to worsen, Dalida thought that she might have found a glimmer of hope.

In 1972, and at the height of her fame, she fell in love with public figure Richard Chanfray, also known as Saint-Germain.

Chanfray’s complex character was expertly portrayed in scenes that seemed to transition from romance and love, to envy and superficial desires.

The purity of his love for Dalida was constantly put into question. His sly character was exceptionally played by French actor Nicolas Duvauchelle.

A year later, Dalida released her critically acclaimed song Je Suis Malade (I am Sick), which addressed her worsening mental health.

The movie adeptly weaves into Dalida’s greatest hits its score, whose origins lay in the tragedies she experienced in her life.

Due to Alviti’s resemblance and her vocal similarities to Dalida, as well as the seamless editing process, the lip-syncing was not at all noticeable – she appeared to be genuinely singing.

After Chanfray’s attempts at making music, paintings, and sculptures all ended without success, his irritation with Dalida and her success grew.

They eventually separated in 1981 when Dalida realized that he was not the right man for her.
One year later, Chanfray committed suicide by ingesting barbiturates while inhaling the exhaust gas of his car.

After the death of Chanfray, the movie shows Dalida’s subsequent lack of enthusiasm for her own work and her sinking into deep depression.

In a period of intense soul-searching, she frequently flew to India to meet with a guru who would help her meditate and embark on a journey to find inner peace.

Marked by a transition to no makeup and a casual wardrobe, it was clear that Dalida had started to let go of her fame and glamorous lifestyle.

However, she was soon re-immersed into the same extravagant lifestyle when, at the peak of her depression, her brother, Orlando, landed her the lead role in Youssef Chahine’s Arabic drama, The Sixth Day.

This section of the bio-pic was filmed in Egypt, and worked to capture the true essence of that experience by including Egyptian actors.

But depression continued to hound Dalida.

In a devastating final scene, she decides to end her life with an overdose of barbiturates.
She left a suicide note that read, “Life is unbearable for me… Forgive me.”

In this scene, Alviti expertly captures the tormented artist’s growing desire for the release of death.

As she prepared for her death, she wore white satin pajamas, had a glass of whiskey in her hand, and – with the subtlest of smiles – headed to her final destination: the bedroom.

The beautiful cinematography and camerawork greatly added to the realism and emotional rigor of the scene, which seems to be a bittersweet relief for the viewer as well as Dalida’s character.