DALÍLAND - Mark Reviews Movies

Dalíland, Magnolia Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 8, 2023

The story of surrealist artist Salvador Dalí is apparently too much for Dalíland, an unfocused and uncertain movie about the man, as seen through the eyes of a visitor into the famous painter's strange world, artistic philosophy, and eccentric lifestyle. That's not necessarily the wrong choice, but the intentions of John Walsh's screenplay are so unclear that everything here, from the mostly undefined protagonist to the extravagance of the artist's existence, is as dull as it is shallow.

Most of this tale is set in 1984, when an 80-year-old Dalí lived in New York City with his wife and an entourage of younger people, drawn to the artist's creativity, fame, and, of course, money. Ben Kingsley plays the man in a performance that's about half attitude, a quarter accent, and the final portion the way he wears Dalí's signature mustache. In other words, the actor's work is about as fine as it can be, considering the fact that the artist is less a character in this story and more a caricature of the broad ideas we have about his art and his larger-than-life public persona.

The real story, oddly, belongs to James (Christopher Briney), who initially works at an art gallery preparing for a large showing of old and new works by the surrealist master—the most famous and only living of his contemporaries. An art school dropout who realized his work wasn't any good and has since decided to play a more behind-the-scenes role in his aspiring career, James catches Dalí's attention, as well as that of the artist's wife Gala (Barbara Sukowa), on account of his youth, his good looks, and his obvious admiration for the Spanish painter. If the movie's Dalí is a caricature, James doesn't even achieve that level of depth or intrigue. He's a blank-faced blank slate, purely an audience stand-in that primarily makes us hope we're not nearly as boring as he is.

Basically, James doesn't matter, and the central problem, perhaps, is that Walsh and director Mary Harron know that a bit too well. They're here for Dalí, just as anyone else would be, but James serves as more of a barrier toward seeing and trying to understand the artist than a window through which to arrive at any comprehension of him.

The gimmick is that James, who gets into Dalí's good graces by making a book of photocopies of his various signatures and appealing to his ego, is tasked by the gallery owner to ensure that the artist is creating new work for the upcoming show. When the boss fires James for becoming too distracted by party atmosphere surrounding Dalí, he's enlisted as a personal assistant by the artist.

Those parties are the big deal here, as Dalí spends a fortune on elaborate bacchanals, overflowing with drinks and filled with beautiful people for himself and, in the specific case of Broadway actor Jeff Fenholt (Zachary Nachbar-Seckel), Gala to enjoy. James gets to have some fun, too, with model Ginesta (Suki Waterhouse), who enters the story to give our protagonist an infatuation and to reveal Dalí's voyeuristic sexuality, only to unceremoniously exit as soon as that meager characterization is out of the way.

The whole movie feels that way—of forcing various characters and narrative conceits into this tale for a sole purpose, just to abandon them as soon as some minimal piece of information has been communicated. There are a few flashbacks, for example, that show a younger Dalí (played by Ezra Miller) and Gala (played by Avital Lvova) meeting, realizing they share an odd personality, and recognizing that his The Persistence of Memory will be a work that lasts (Strangely, Harron doesn't show us the painting but does suggest it, awkwardly, by way of melting cheese and a superimposed clock). That's the extent of any biographical interest in the artist on the movie's part, though, and the inclusion of these moments makes the portrait of the character feel even more incomplete.

As for the vague portrait we do receive from the movie, it's of a Dalí in decline who's still desperate to maintain his output, his fame, his money, and some feeling of enjoyment in life. There was undeniably a lot more to the real man, and along the periphery of the narrative of Dalíland, there's even the suggestion of a lot more to this version, too (A trip to Europe reveals he's either directly or unwittingly involved in massive art fraud). Too much, especially the bland protagonist and the screenplay's ambling ways, gets in the way of actually seeing anything beneath the surface.

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