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MovieMail's Review
Michael Brooke takes a look at the three films from the determinedly ascetic filmmakers, including The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, which is heaven for Bach aficionados.
The films of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub are generally more namechecked than actually seen, partly thanks to their dauntingly rigorous reputation, but also to notorious presentational stipulations such as an occasional refusal to sanction subtitles, lest onscreen text interfere with their images' visual purity. Thankfully, these strictures have not been applied to New Wave's entirely English-friendly triple-bill.
Their feature debut, The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968) combines a spare, ascetic treatment of a few events in Johann Sebastian Bach's life (the text sourced from his wife's diary) with unvarnished presentation of his music - the filmmakers' priorities highlighted by their casting of the great harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt as the composer. For Bach aficionados, this is unmissable.
Sicilia! (1998) is a similarly stripped-down but nonetheless riveting account of a long-exiled Sicilian-American's rediscovery of his ancestral homeland through deceptively casual conversations with relations and strangers and haunting glimpses of its rugged landscapes. Finally, Une visite au Louvre (2004) consists almost entirely of shots of fifteen mostly French artworks, accompanied by a waspish, hyper-critical female voiceover channelling the ghost of Paul Cézanne.
Contains The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968), Sicilia! (1999) and Une Visite au Louvre (2004).
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach. Covering the years of Bach's life from his marriage to Anna Magdalena to his death in 1748, this is at once a love story, a documentary, a socio-political statement, and a film of the music of Bach, in which the music takes centre stage.
Sicilia!: Based on Elio Vittorini's 1938-1939 anti-fascist novel Conversations in Sicily, banned by the Fascists in 1942, Sicilia! is a four part film which follows emigrant Silvestro who is returning home after fifteen years spent in America. His conversations, with his mother, on the train, or even on the price of oranges, as well as the recurrent shot of arid landscape outside the train window, supply some of the most intense and memorable moments in contemporary cinema.
Un Visite Au Louvre: As the camera shows us some of the masterpieces held in the Louvre, Julie Kotaï speaks the comments made about the paintings by Cézanne which were put into writing by the poet Joachim Gasquet.
