At the centre of Pianomania is a fair-haired, mild-mannered man wearing rimless spectacles who tunes concert pianos in Vienna for Steinway. Movies being what they are today, you expect some 15 minutes in that this innocuous figure will throw himself in front of a celebrated musician on the stage of the Vienna Kunsthaus, disarm a would-be assassin and turn out to be a retired secret service agent just waiting to be called back to active service. In fact, it's more interesting than that. It's a genuine Austrian documentary subtitled "The Search for the Perfect Sound" about Stephan Knüpfer, a celebrated figure in musical circles, whom we see preparing the pianos for, and working very seriously with, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Alfred Brendel and Lang Lang, and for a little light relief, working on japes with the comic music duo Richard Hyung-ki Joo and Aleksey Igudesman. The directors tell us nothing about Knüpfer's background or career,...
- 8/21/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Mother (15)
(Bong Joon-ho, 2009, S Korea) Kim Hye-ja, Won Bin, Jin Ku, Yoon Jae-Moon. 130 mins
After his mutant tadpole movie The Host, Bong brings us another Korean monster: a middle-aged herbalist with a will of steel and some serious overprotection issues. Her simple-minded son has been fitted up for a schoolgirl's murder, and in a society of inept cops, exploitative lawyers and generally corrupt townsfolk, only mommie dearest believes he's innocent – and sets out to prove it. It's a mystery thriller to make Hitchcock proud, and a delectably warped parable of blood running thicker than water.
The Expendables (15)
(Sylvester Stallone, 2010, Us) Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li. 104 mins
Now that the 80s beefcake reunion has actually happened, does anyone care? Probably enough to make this a guilty-pleasure night out, and that's all it really asks for. With a last surge of testosterone coursing through their wrinkled physiques, our senior...
(Bong Joon-ho, 2009, S Korea) Kim Hye-ja, Won Bin, Jin Ku, Yoon Jae-Moon. 130 mins
After his mutant tadpole movie The Host, Bong brings us another Korean monster: a middle-aged herbalist with a will of steel and some serious overprotection issues. Her simple-minded son has been fitted up for a schoolgirl's murder, and in a society of inept cops, exploitative lawyers and generally corrupt townsfolk, only mommie dearest believes he's innocent – and sets out to prove it. It's a mystery thriller to make Hitchcock proud, and a delectably warped parable of blood running thicker than water.
The Expendables (15)
(Sylvester Stallone, 2010, Us) Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li. 104 mins
Now that the 80s beefcake reunion has actually happened, does anyone care? Probably enough to make this a guilty-pleasure night out, and that's all it really asks for. With a last surge of testosterone coursing through their wrinkled physiques, our senior...
- 8/20/2010
- by The guide
- The Guardian - Film News
How can it take a year to tune a piano? Jude Rogers on a gem of a movie about a bid to perform Bach's Art of Fugue perfectly
It does not, at first, seem the most promising of premises. But Pianomania, a delicate Austrian documentary about the painstaking work of a master piano-tuner, has spent the last six months scooping up international awards.
The film takes us into the life of Steinway's piano technician Stefan Knüpfer as he works on the instruments of the world's greatest virtuosos. In the pursuit of perfection, Knüpfer bounces tennis balls on piano strings, replaces the leg of one instrument with a cheap violin as an experiment – and spends an entire year working on one piano until it's the ideal instrument on which to play an unfinished masterpiece by Bach.
Pianomania began as a pipe-dream in 1999. Documentary-maker Robert Cibis met Knüpfer one afternoon as he...
It does not, at first, seem the most promising of premises. But Pianomania, a delicate Austrian documentary about the painstaking work of a master piano-tuner, has spent the last six months scooping up international awards.
The film takes us into the life of Steinway's piano technician Stefan Knüpfer as he works on the instruments of the world's greatest virtuosos. In the pursuit of perfection, Knüpfer bounces tennis balls on piano strings, replaces the leg of one instrument with a cheap violin as an experiment – and spends an entire year working on one piano until it's the ideal instrument on which to play an unfinished masterpiece by Bach.
Pianomania began as a pipe-dream in 1999. Documentary-maker Robert Cibis met Knüpfer one afternoon as he...
- 8/17/2010
- by Jude Rogers
- The Guardian - Film News
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