In the Dalíland trailer, we get a peek into the wild world of Spanish artist Salvador Dalí, brilliantly brought to life by Sir Ben Kingsley. Directed by Mary Harron, known for her work on I Shot Andy Warhol and American Psycho, the film dives into the chaotic, party-filled, tension-laced life of Dalí during his marriage to Gala Dalí in the 1970s.
Kingsley totally transforms into Dalí, capturing his eccentricities perfectly. The story is set in 1974's New York and Spain, and told through the eyes of James, an ambitious young man played by Christopher Briney who's hungry to make it big in the art scene. The trailer gives us a sneak peek into the mix of real-life drama and fiction, even teasing the notorious 1974 theft from Dalí's gallery. Dalíland looks to be a surreal ride into Dalí's life and art.
"The film's seventies setting allows it to be a portrait of the moment when the art world underwent its tectonic shift, fusing with the money culture, becoming a kind of piggy bank for the wealthy," writes Variety's Owen Gleiberman. "Dalí and Gala have, in their way, played into this. They're exploiters of Dalí's legend who have, in turn, been exploited." At that time Dalí still had about fifteen years to go, but Kingsley sees the period as "possibly the closing chapters of Dalí's life," the setting of "his coming to terms with mortality, a subject with which he struggled dreadfully." The phenomenon witnessed by Briney's character, and thus the audience, is "how a genius leaves the world" — and, in this particular case, leaves it considerably more surreal than he found it.
Dalíland opens everywhere on June 9.