Music

Language has always been a primary concern of the cinema of Angela Schanelec. Like her existentially adrift characters, her filmmaking is driven by the dilemma of how to reconcile our vital need for communication with the inadequacy of the spoken word. In MUSIC, she comes close to forsaking dialogue altogether and adopts a new idiom: song.
The film begins in Greece in an indeterminate past. The cars suggest the 1980s, a television broadcasts a memorable match from the 2006 World Cup, but the story’s parallels to the myth of Oedipus—the protagonist’s wounded feet, a roadside confrontation that culminates in murder, a mother’s desperate final decision— places the action out of time altogether. This impression is reinforced by the actors’ poised performances and the pared-down beauty of the images, which dapple the rugged, sun-bleached nature of the Peloponnese with splashes of vivid colour: a bright red windbreaker, the royal blue of a prison uniform. Once the film relocates to Berlin, it is firmly in the present. Afflicted by the burden of prior mistakes, some committed unknowingly, others inherited, the characters find respite in music. Even if they can’t exorcise their pain, at least they can give it expression. (Giovanni Marchini Camia)

In the presence of Angela Schanalec.
The conversation on the 20th of October will be sign interpreted. More info here.

Angela Schanalec: ICH BIN DEN SOMMER ÜBER IN BERLIN GEBLIEBEN (1993), DAS GLÜCK MEINER SCHWESTER (1995), PLÄTZE IN STÄDTEN (1998), MEIN LANGSAMES LEBEN (2001), MARSEILLE (2004), NACHMITTAG (2007), ORLY (2010), THE BRIDGES OF SARAJEVO/PRINCIP TEXT (2014, K), DER TRAUMHAFTE WEG (2016), ICH WAR ZUHAUSE, ABER ... (2019)