Despite being under house arrest and banned from making films for 20 years, Jafar Panahi continues to defy the Iranian authorities. In 2011, he smuggled This Is Not a Film out of the country on a memory stick hidden inside a cake and, earlier this year, he was awarded the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for Taxi, for which he took the extreme risk of driving passengers around Tehran and chatting to them about the state of the nation. In between these pictures, Panahi made use of a beach house to shoot Closed Curtain in complete secrecy. Made in collaboration with Kamboziya Partovi, this is a Pirandello-like study of characters in search of a narrative that slyly blurs the line between fiction and reality to
Screenwriter Kamboziya Partovi arrives at a three-storey beach house on the Caspian coast and proceeds to shave his head and put up some blackout curtains after allowing his dog, Boy, out of a zippered bag. The keeping of canines is forbidden by the Islamic Republic and Partovi is on his guard when siblings Maryam Moghadam and Hadi Saeedi break into the villa during a thunderstorm and request sanctuary. They claim to be on the run after drinking alcohol at an illegal party. But, once the sounds of a round-up have abated, Saeedi goes in search of a car and warns Partovi that his sister has suicidal tendencies.
As they chat, the increasingly paranoid Partovi gets the impression that Moghadam (whose manner seems rather theatrical) has been in the house before. Moreover, she reveals that she knows a good deal about his past and the reasons for his self-imposed exile. She keeps interrupting Partovi's efforts to get on with some work and asks why he bothers to keep writing when no one will film his scripts. Gradually, he comes to suspect that his guest may be a police spy and they start squabbling after she tears down the curtains. But Moghadam suddenly disappears and Partovi and Boy (who has been watching a TV news report about some brutal dog-catchers) are forced to hide when someone smashes the patio door and begins to ransack the premises.
Suddenly, the emphasis shifts and Jafar Panahi enters the picture. First seen in a mirror, he removes the dust sheets from the film posters decorating the walls in an act of quiet defiance. The members of the crew also appear, along with some workmen who come to repair the door (one of whom asks if he can have a picture taken with the infamous film-maker). Panahi tries to get on with his life and tries to eat. But the characters from the first part of the scenario continue to haunt him and Moghadam entices him to the water's edge. However, he refuses to follow her into the waves and he finds himself back indoors.
Shortly afterwards, Azadh Torabi comes looking for her brother and sister, but Panahi claims to have no knowledge of them. He watches phone footage from earlier in the film, as Partovi greets Moghadam and Saeedi. The landlord's wife drops by and gives Panahi some food. Eventually, he packs up his belongings and leaves the villa, seemingly unaware that Moghadam is watching him.
Opening as a parable on Panahi's situation, this turns into a rumination on the pressures placed on an artist who is forbidden to create. Moghadam is both a muse and the personification of Panahi's own dark thoughts, as he struggles with being both cut off from the world and under permanent surveillance. She is both the cause of his writer's block and the solution. But Panahi is also troubled by the voice of Partovi, who may well be a figment of his imagination, hence his being surrounded by the camera crew in the footage Panahi watches at the end of the film.
It would be tempting to see Boy as a symbol of Panahi's confined talent. But this is a picture that seems replete with metaphors and it would be very easy to read too much into what is stated and implied. Yet, for all the Godardian self-reflexivity (that extends to the fact that cinematographer Mohammad Reza Jahanpanah employs a shallow depth of field), this is as much a courageous act of confession as a treatise on the creative process under constraint. Panahi appears to be admitting that he is finding his incarceration tough to handle and fears that his work will suffer the longer he is deprived of outside stimulation and the opportunity to depict a reality other than his own meta-fictionality. After all, there is only so much he can and wants to say about himself and his plight. However, by going into Tehran to make Taxi, Panahi seems to have reconnected with the people and their problems, which have always been his greatest source of inspiration.
The debuting duo of Remy Bennett and Émilie Richard-Froozan also reject traditional linearity in Buttercup Bill, which has attracted a good deal of attention as the first release from Sadie Frost and Emma Comley's Blonde to Black Pictures and because the star and co-director is the granddaughter of singer, Tony Bennett. Indeed, the pair also attempt to deflect the male gaze that many theorists deem the predominant form of filmic representation. But, while this is ambitious and accomplished on a formal level, the content is much less remarkable.
Tiring of an unfulfilling New York existence that revolves around parties and therapy sessions, Pernilla (Remy Bennett) is distraught when she hears that her school friend, Flora, has hanged herself in a public park. She is surprised when their playmate Patrick (Evan Louison) fails to come to the funeral and heads to Louisiana to track him down. Even though they have not seen each other for a while, they instantly resume their old rapport and even though she is dismayed by the fact Patrick has got religion, Pernilla moves into the backwoods shack he keeps filled with old toys and other mementoes of childhood.
When not dancing or teasing each other, they start playing the sexual power games they remember from their adolescence. Some involve strangers, who are lured into their trap and Pernilla finds herself flashing back to her past and an elusive character named Buttercup Bill (who had encouraged her to come south and reconnect with her youth). However, they are unable to commit to each other as they would like, as they share a guilty secret. When they were kids, Patrick raped Flora and Pernilla stood and watched. She tells him they will always be friends, but never anything more. Yet, as the film ends, it seems clear that they have become incapable of functioning without each other.
Although billed as a `Southern Gothic Romance', this owes less to Tennessee Williams and William Faulkner than to films like Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) and Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973). Richard-Froozan has also admitted to having an invisible friend as a girl. Yet, notwithstanding these personal attributes, this always feels more like a stylistic exercise than an in-depth psychological study of corrupted childhood innocence, adult guilt and the impossibility of redemption.
Cinematographer Ryan Foregger makes atmospheric use of the locales, which assume an added aura of purity through production designer Akin McKenzie and costume designer Veronica Foregger's use of white and other pale hues. Vanessa Howarth's jagged editing in the opening passages is also impressive, as is the well-chosen jazz-led soundtrack. But some of the imagery is self-conscious, as are scenes like the discussion of faith in the field filled with decrepit slogan-daubed furniture. Indeed, the dialogue is often so loaded that it defeats the otherwise excellent Bennett and Louison, whose playful banter is laced with a simmering sense that things could easily spiral out of control. But it's the sketchiness of the conceit that ultimately undermines this rather precious project, as the audience never gets to understand, let alone share, the co-directors' fascination with their characters, themes and setting.
Another illicit relationship dominates Liv Ullmann's bold revision of August Strindberg's 1888 play, Miss Julie, which transfers the action from Sweden to Ireland and confines its focus to the three main characters. Yet, despite a deep appreciation of the playwright's concerns and the intensity of the performances, this remains stubbornly theatrical and fails to match Alf Sjöberg's Cannes-winning 1951 version with Anita Björk and Ulf Palme. Nevertheless, it does represent an improvement on Mike Figgis's 1999 interpretation, which was hamstrung by the fussy use of split screens and the mediocre turns of Saffron Burrows and Peter Mullan.
As the servants celebrate Midsummer's Eve on the estate of a northern Irish baron, John the valet (Colin Farrell) chats in the kitchen with his Kathleen the cook (Samantha Morton), who also happens to be his fiancée. They gossip about their master's headstrong daughter, Miss Julie (Jessica Chastain), who has just broken off her engagement and caused something of a stir by dancing with those beneath her station. Yet, while she happy to fraternise after getting tipsy, she still wants Kathleen to prepare a potion to prevent her pedigree dog from getting pregnant by the gamekeeper's mongrel.
Undaunted by the wagging tongues, Miss Julie (who is played by Nora McMenamy in a prologue that highlights how she was neglected by her mother as a child) insists that she has the right to claim the best dancer and lets John know that her status allows her to do whatever she likes with him. John attempts to remain solicitous in front of Kathleen. But, once he is alone with Miss Julie, he becomes more flirtatious and encourages her own desire to rebel against society and satiate her lusts.
She orders him to kiss her boot and tells him that she has had designs on him since spotting him over the garden wall as a girl. But, the tables are turned after she surrenders to John in his bedroom, as even in the class-conscious Ireland of the 1890s, a man still holds dominion over a woman in sexual matters. Miss Julie attempts to persuade John to defy convention and elope to Italy with her and open a hotel. But, now she has fallen from her pedestal, she no longer exerts the same hold. Moreover, Kathleen returns to the kitchen and reminds John of his duty to God, as well as the household and herself. Consequently, as news comes that Miss Julie's father has returned, she is left with one option to preserve her reputation.
Owing much to John Everett Millais's `Ophelia', this romanticised way out is one of the many liberties that Ullmann takes with Strindberg's once-scandalous text. Stripping the action to its bare essentials does little harm to the structure or significance of the play, as does the curious decision to switch it from the dead of night to daytime. But the bid to open out the drama around Castle Coole in Enniskllen feels as forced as the attempts to translate the social and religious issues to rural Ireland. The use of Bach, Chopin, Schubert and Schumann to counterpoint the action also misfires, as the music often has a mellifluence that feels at odds with the tempestuous emotions.
Replacing Michelle Williams, who was forced to decline the title role, Jessica Chastain is suitably aristocratic and feisty. But, while there is a genuine spark in her exchanges with Colin Farrell, they always seem to be acting rather than inhabiting their roles. Indeed, this may well have been more potent as a stage production, as Mikhail Krichman's camera consistently seems to emphasise the technical adeptness of the acting rather than its naturalism, although the ever-dependable Samantha Morton strikes a more persuasive note as the God-fearing domestic who isn't afraid to speak her mind in spite of knowing her place.
The established order is also toppled in Steve Oram's directorial bow, Aaaaaaaah!, which debuted last week at FrightFest. At least the third British film of recent times to notice the simian primitivism of modern capitalist society, this bleak satire dispenses with dialogue and invites the gallant cast to convey their thoughts and emotions through a range of shrieks, grunts, sighs and snarls. This might have represented an amusing actorly challenge, but its novelty quickly wears thin and exposes the slightness of a conceit that is bound to convince some critics more than others.
Alpha male Steve Oram strides through the countryside with his subservient mate, Tom Meeten. They pause in the woods to urinate over a framed photograph of Oram's wife in her wedding dress before striking out in the direction of the South London suburb on the horizon. This is home to Julian Rhind-Tutt, who has supplanted patriarch Julian Barrett, who now cowers in a corner of the garden and survives on the food smuggled out to him by daughter Lucy Honigman.
She joins mother Toyah Willcox in the kitchen, as she watches a cookery programme (whose well-dressed presenter, Shelley Longworth, has her breasts exposed) and prepares a meal for Rhind-Tutt and her son, Sean Reynard, who panders to the interloper's need to rule the roost and lets him win at the computer games they play on a giant flat-screen television and laughs at his boorish antics. Supper descends into chaos when Rhind-Tutt necks a bottle of beer and begins flinging the food around. Ultimately, a dish is emptied over Willxox's head and Honigman knows there is no point in trying to defend her. However, she does sneak into the kitchen to give Barrett a Battenberg cake, which he cradles as he falls asleep under his bush.
The following day, as Barrett scuttles naked around the woods, Honigman meets up with pal Holli Dempsey in the park. They go shoplifting in a boutique, but are spotted by assistant Noel Fielding, who takes them to manager Waen Shepherd's office. He begins to masturbate, as Fielding touches their breasts. But Dempsey bites off Fielding's penis as she fellates him and they steal the cash box before fleeing.
Rhind-Tutt is delighted with the money and throws a party. However, Oram and Meeten hear the noise as they walk past and gatecrash without a moment's hesitation. They draw a pair of glasses on Rhind-Tutt's face in black indelible pen as he slumbers in a chair before Oram takes Honigman into the bedroom to lay claim to her. He threatens Reynard when he tries to intervene and they leave with Honigman following obediently behind. They break into a nearby house and try on clothing from the wardrobe before getting drunk and marking their territory.
Meanwhile, Rhind-Tutt has woken up and noticed the ink around his eyes. He becomes angry when he can't wash it off and goes for a smoke in the garden. Barrett is cowering against the fence and they seem to share a flashback to when Rhind-Tutt came to fix the washing machine and Willcox was so smitten with him that he was able to seduce her and dispatch her milquetoast husband into the garden.
Determined to retain control over his domain, Rhind-Tutt goes off in search of Oram, with Reynard loping along behind him. They find Oram, Meeten and Honigman playing football in the park. Rhind-Tutt creeps through the undergrowth to spy on them before launching an attack. They slash Meeten with a blade, but they are no match for Oram. He slams Reynard's face into the ground and pulls off Rhind-Tutts arm in a display of raw power that pleases him so much that he carries the limb around with him as he goes shopping with Honigman.
Oram offers some cake to Willcox, whose suspicions are allayed and she submits to him on the bed. She also approves as he throws Rhind-Tutt's possessions out of the window. However, she can only just suppress a smirk as Oram places Meeten's body on the kitchen table and orders Honigman to play the violin as a memorial gesture. But she tucks him when Oram castrates his buddy and fries up his sweetbreads before dumping his corpse in a wheelie bin and inviting Barrett to resume his place within the household. He watches a cartoon about a chicken and an egg and seems content. But, as everyone sleeps that night, he takes a knife and exacts his revenge for their treachery.
The name of Ben Wheatley among the producorial credits and the presence of the Mighty Boosh duo will guarantee this scatalogically macabre farce a certain cachet. But, for all the courage of the performances, this too often feels like an in-joke that is so insistent on its own hilarious ingenuity that it almost bullies the audience into either laughing or recoiling. The concept isn't all that original, as it simply swaps the suburban cavemen of Claude Faraldo's Themroc (1973) for apes. John Waters went down a similar shock route with Pink Flamingos (1972) and it's easy to see this becoming another cult trash classic.
Amusingly, Oram apparently produced a witty, literate script and then asked his fellow thespians to translate it into gibbonly gibberish. He often directs with similar panache, as he shoots in the Academy ratio and keeps Matt Wicks's handheld camera moving as though it was filming a nature documentary. He is also fortunate in having a guitar score improvised by King Crimson frontman, Robert Fripp, who just happens to be married to Willcox. However, it's stretching things to call this a horror movie, as the violence is as cartoonish as the vulgarity. Citing Waters and Ed Wood among his inspirations, Oram denies seeking to score any socio-political points. But the snipes at the consumerist urge to gratify every appetite are pretty blatant and lack a dispiriting sense of dystopian dread. As a consequence, this ends up feeling like a cynical cine-prank concocted by a bunch of mates in a pale imitation of a master provocateur like Lars von Trier. It's a bold gambit, but it doesn't come quite close enough to paying off.
Another cuckoo infiltrates a much more palatial nest in Tony Britten's Draw on Sweet Night, a seemingly speculative study of the life and music of the celebrated madrigalist John Wilbye (1574-1638) that cross-cuts between events in Suffolk in the late Tudor and early Stuart period and an I Faglioni recording session in modern-day London. Wilbye published two books of madrigals, in 1598 and 1609. Yet, he appears not to have written anything more before his death in 1628. Britten is curious to know why Wilbye dedicated the second volume to the notorious Lady Arbella Stuart and why he produced no new compositions after he left the luxury of Hengrave Hall in Suffolk to share a cosy home in Colchester with the daughter of his former patron.
John Wilbye (Mark Arends) is dismayed to learn from mistress Ann Sixye (Ania Sowinski) that she is to be married to his friend and fellow composer, George Kirbye (Christian McKay). He mopes around Hengrave Hall, where Sir Thomas Kytson (Nicky Henson) warns his Catholic wife, Lady Elizabeth (Doon Mackichan), that she is under investigation for recusancy. Unwilling to risk the death penalty, Wilbye refuses Lady Elizabeth's request to compose a Latin mass for her secret chapel. However, he is powerless to refuse when she seduces him in the parish church and the pair become lovers.
Lady Elizabeth is put out, therefore, when Wilbye becomes enamoured of her daughter, Mary (Sophia Di Martino), after she arrives at Hengrave with her children after separating from her brutish husband, Lord Darcy. Despite an initial coolness, Wilbye comes to recognise Mary as a kindred spirit and accepts her invitation to compose for her. But Lady Elizabeth is a jealous woman and, when the famous lutenist John Dowland (Simon Wilding) comes to stay and flirts openly with Mary, she locks her in her room to prevent her from joining Wilbye in his bed and he draws the conclusion that she slept with Dowland.
Exploiting the tensions between Mary and Wilbye, Lady Elizabeth persuades her daughter to leave for Colchester, while she resumes her liaison with Wilbye. They continue to comfort each other after Sir Thomas passes away and she rewards his loyalty with a small farm. But Wilbye strays when Lady Arbella Stuart (Milanka Brooks) - who was considered by some a likely successor to Queen Elizabeth - spends a night at Hengrave while on a tour of the area. He is sufficiently grateful to her for re-igniting his passion for love and music that he dedicates his second collection of madrigals to her.
Yet, when Lady Elizabeth dies, he is encouraged by Kirbye to follow his heart and make up with Mary, whose letters he has continued to return unopened. She is surprised to see him, but quickly explains that Lady Elizabeth duped him into thinking she had betrayed him and he regrets the folly of not reading her correspondence. She forgives him and invites him to move into her humble home and he hopes that he can atone in the years left to them.
Although some of the cast struggle with the contemporary argot, this is a thoughtfully played piece, with Doon Mackichan particularly impressing as the sensual, but devout and insecure Lady Kytson. Belle Mundi's production design, Andrew Joslin's costumes and Phil Wood's photography are also admirable, although it would be difficult not to be inspired by the magnificent setting of Kentwell Hall at Long Melford. The shots of the grounds in the early morning mist are exceptional and the use of candles for lighting the interiors also pays dividends.
In addition to attempting period speech, Britten also contributes a number of modern madrigals that draw on 16th-century source material and comment on the historical action. The effect is pleasing, if occasionally distracting, especially as lyrics from the likes of `Draw on Sweet Night' and `Weep, O Mine Eyes' occasionally drift across the screen in an ornate and somewhat illegible script. Moreover, an interlude showing I Faglioni singers Clare Wilkinson and Matthew Long going on a date in the West End feels utterly extraneous. Nevertheless, this is a bold and intelligent picture that has obviously been made with considerable care on a modest budget and, as one might expect, the music is sublime.
Another well-ordered household is disrupted by character from below stairs in Anna Muylaert's The Second Mother, which follows Argentine Jorge Gaggero's Live-In Maid (2004) and Chilean Sebastian Silva's The Maid (2009) in exploring how changing circumstances alter the relationship between the members of affluent South American families and the loyal domestics they have all taken for granted. Lacing the breezy comedy with astute social observation, this may not be the most demanding arthouse picture to reach UK cinemas in 2015. But it makes its points with the same assured insight and empathy that characterised the script Muylaert co-wrote for Cao Hamburger's delightful rite of passage, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (2006).
Housekeeper Regina Casé has devoted 13 years of her life to São Paulo doctor Lourenço Mutarelli and his wife, Karine Teles. She understands their needs to well that they hardly have to give orders. Indeed, she has played such a key role in the nurturing of their son, Michel Joelsas, that he feels closer to Casé than he does to Teles and, even though he is about to take his university entrance exam, he still slips into the fiftysomething maid's bed for a reassuring cuddle.
Casé also knows her place and always refuses the small kindnesses offered by Teles and the indolent Mutarelli, who inherited his wealth and has few social graces to match his sense of entitlement. Everything changes, however, when Casé receives an unexpected visit from Camila Mardila, the teenage daughter she left behind when she separated from her husband. Racked with guilt, Casé has always striven to give her child the best she can afford. But, when Mardila asks if she can stay while sitting an exam to secure a place to study architecture at the city university, Casé discovers how little she has in common with the confident and independent young woman who sees the world in a very different light.
Thus, instead of sleeping on a mattress beside Casé in the basement, Mardila accepts Joelsas's offer to use the opulent guest room. Moreover, realising that both Joelsas and Mutarelli have developed a crush on her, she starts taking her meals with the family, eats the expensive ice-cream and even goes for a dip in the pool. Casé tries to browbeat Mardila into showing some deference and confides her concerns to junior maid Helena Albergaria. But Teles is also discomfited by Mardila's behaviour and declares the pool out of bounds when she spots a rat swimming in it. She also takes exception to the fact that Mutarelli buys Mardila some books and helps her study, while neglecting his son. However, she loses her patience when Mutarelli proposes to Mardila and no one believes his protestation that he was merely joking.
Joelsas flunks the exam and accepts a place at a university in Australia. However, Mardila gets top marks and is awarded a place. The only thing stopping her accepting is the fact that she has an infant son whose existence she has kept hidden. On learning she is a grandmother, Casé resigns her post and moves in with Mardila, so that she can improve herself and she can give her boy the start in life he deserves.
Although the twist feels a touch telenovelettish, this poignantly upbeat ending is neatly judged and allows Muylaert to draw the parallel storylines together. It also completes the sequence of twinned and mirrored incidents and traits that have recurred throughout the picture, along with the telltale signs that reveal the extent to which Casé is reminded of her status. But, for all the narratorial and thematic intricacy, this remains a highly accessible and engaging sitcom that is knowingly played by a fine ensemble.
With her beaming, toothy grin, Casé steals the show, although she is well supported by Teles, who shares many of her hopes, fears and prejudices across the class divide. But Mardila also revels in challenging convention and exploiting the man-childish chauvinism of Mutarelli and Joelsas (who has grown up a good deal since he headlined The Year My Parents Went on Vacation). There are moments when the action seems to be lapsing into a Brazilian version of Pier Paolo Pasolini's Theorem (1968). But Muylaert avoids arch symbolism and keeps the humour and the socio-political critique rooted in a reality that is deftly delineated by production designer Marquinho Pedroso and cinematographer Barbara Alvarez.
Yet another intruder transforms Dominic Brunt's Bait from a grim slice of northern life into a grisly slasher horror. However, while this has aspirations of being a deceptively meaningful recessional parable, it so badly misjudges its exploitational elements that it winds up being much more misogynist than it intends. Consequently, what should have been a provocative study of financial entrapment and the manipulation of the poor descends into cliché and caricature, which are all the more disappointing considering that Brunt (who is best known for playing Paddy Kirk in Emmerdale) made such an impressive debut with the zombie chiller, Before Dawn (2013)
Victoria Smurfit and Joanne Mitchell have a market stall selling organic tea and cake. They put up with lots of leery banter from the men who pass and long to open their own shop and attract a better class of customer. However, the bank manager refuses their request for a loan and they are beginning to believe they are doomed to eke out their miserable existence when mild-mannered venture capitalist Jonathan Slinger informs Smirfit that he adores her Irish brogue and offers her £10,000 to realise her dream.
The mouthy Mitchell has her doubts, as Slinger seems too good to be true. But Smurfit is tired of struggling and asking mother Rula Lenska to care for her autistic son, Zacahry Moore. But, no sooner has she accepted the money, than she discovers that not only is Slinger married, but that he is also a loan shark who imposes exorbitant rates of interest and employs thug Adam Fogerty to intimidate and punish any late payers. Yet, when they try to return the sum, Slinger informs them that it has still accrued fees and, when they refuse to cough up, he has their stall vandalised and Mitchell's boyfriend savagely beaten. But Slinger oversteps the mark when he threatens Lenska and Moore and Smurfit and Mitchell go on the warpath.
One suspects screenwriter Paul Roundell (working from a story by Mitchell) intended to put a feminist spin on the traditional horror scenario of the helpless girls being imperilled by a twisted maniac. But, for all his Thelma and Louise-like intentions, the decision to have Smurfit conquer her tormentor in her underwear during the blood-soaked finale proves a major miscalculation and turns this into lascivious fanboy fodder.
The performances are spirited and cinematographer Geoff Boyle makes effective use of the rundown locations. There is also an unsettling claymation coda by the estimable Lee Hardcastle. But, while the opening sequences have an authentic social realist feel, the lurch into rapacious splatter lacks the finesse that could have made this a noteworthy exercise in extreme horror revisionism.
Finally, this week, comes the latest documentary from the prolific Phil Grabsky. However, this is not the latest entry in the popular Exhibition on Screen series, but a return to the world of classical music. Having already produced the exceptional quartet of In Search of Mozart (2006), In Search of Beethoven (2009), In Search of Haydn (2012) and In Search of Chopin (2014), Grabsky accompanies Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes on his four-year journey to understand and interpret five of the finest and most demanding works written for the piano. Deeply personal and often highly technical, Concerto - A Beethoven Journey seems as though it might intimidate those don't tune in obsessively to BBC Radio Three. But, as the viewer becomes more familiar with both Beethoven and Andsnes, this develops into an intimate and instructive introduction to composing for and playing the piano.
In the first of many speeches to camera delivered from a piano stool, Andsnes looks back on his childhood and reveals that he has reached a stage in his career that allows him to go into projects in unprecedented depth. He opines that Ludwig van Beethoven's piano concertos will test his abilities as an artist and as a student of composition, as he not only records them with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, but also plays them live at prestigious venues across the world.
During the course of his odyssey, Andsnes lifts the lid on the life of a professional musician. He admits to finding the travelling wearying, but is always aware of how privileged he is to be making a living from doing what he loves. He jokes that he insists on unpacking in each hotel room to avoid the sensation of living out of a suitcase and admits that things are a bit easier now he can Skype his young daughter whenever he likes. But the pleasure Andsnes takes at being able to recharge his batteries at his home in Bergen with his partner, horn player Ragnild Lothe, is evident, as his relief he feels when their 12-week premature twins gain strength and he is able to wheel them through the streets in their new pram.
Grabsky dots his profile with such personal details and allows the viewer to get to know the man behind the keyboard. But, while Andsnes is comfortable talking about himself, he looks decidedly ill at ease bantering matily with Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel at the hideous Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Fortunately, however, this is very much a one-man show, as, for the most part, Andsnes conducts the Mahler ensemble from the piano and he clearly decided against letting any of its members speak on camera.
Although he becomes animated when discussing the music, Andsnes does have a tendency to employ florid and somewhat abstract terms when describing the emotional impact of the concertos. This is all well and good (in a luvvie kind of way), but it might have been useful for the armchair devotee and the uninitiated alike to explore the themes and narrative content of the pieces in more detail. A little more on the historical context might also not have gone amiss, although the film is punctuated with extracts from Beethoven's correspondence read by Stephan Grothgar, which are deeply moving when they refer to the deafness that robbed him of the chance to perform or hear his later works and the inability to find a wife with whom to share his success.
Although Andsnes concentrates on the five piano concertos that Beethoven wrote between 1787 and 1811, the 13 year-old prodigy also produced an unpublished sixth piece in E-flat major in 1783. This rarely performed item is sometimes called Piano Concerto No.0. But, as Andsnes explains, the first official concerto that Beethoven wrote (between 1787-89) is now known as No.2, as it was not published until after the work penned between 1796-97, which premiered in Prague in 1798 with Beethoven himself at the piano.
Written in B-flat major, No.2 was a pivotal work in Beethoven's evolution, as he hoped his debut as a soloist at the Burgtheater in March 1795 would make reputation after his move from his birthplace, Bonn, to the imperial capital of Vienna. Andsnes accepts that this is very much the work of a young man. But he also notes that it's a celebration of the liberty that had become a watchword to the across the continent following the French Revolution. While perfecting these first two concertos, Andsnes delights in the fact that Beethoven used them to demonstrate his own virtuosity and marvels at his innovation.
However, he was also aware of his contemporaries and No.3 in C minor borrows a theme from Mozarts 24th Piano Concerto. Andsnes marvels at this, as he examines the structure and tonality of the three movements. As always, the performance aspect is impeccable and the same is true of No.4 in G major. It was written in 1804-05, but didn't receive its full public premiere at the Theater an der Wien until December 1808, when Beethoven performed with an orchestra for the last time.
Andsnes points out the dramatic shifts that are built into the music and stresses that nobody else was producing work of a comparable calibre. Moreover, he avers that all of the significant piano concertists who followed laboured in the shadow of the greatest composer in history. He emphasises this point during the analysis of Piano Concerto No.5 in E-flat major, the celebrated `Emperor Concerto', which was written between 1809-11 and dedicated to Beethoven's patron and pupil, Archduke Rudolf. Andsnes evidently feels the power of this masterwork, although the emotion of reaching the end of his journey is also apparent. No mention is made of No.6 in D major, which was started around the end of 1814 and remained unfinished on Beethoven's death in March 1827. But nothing more needs to be said at the conclusion of this intriguing portrait of an artist that doubles as a fitting tribute to the enduring genius of an undisputed maestro.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article