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 Orchestra Rehearsal More at IMDbPro »Prova d'orchestra (original title)

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20 out of 23 people found the following review useful:
A grand effort from Federico Fellini. Wonderful in every way., 25 September 2003
10/10
Author: Ymir4 from WA

This is likely the finest make-believe documentary that I have ever seen. The setting is a rundown Medieval Roman chapel, now an oratorio where an orchestra gathers. A television crew is making a documentary about this orchestra (while the orchestra is dealing with a union dispute). The bulk of the film's first half focuses on individual musicians, many of whom reminisce about their first encounter with the instrument they play. When the musicians talk about their instrument, they often share thoughtful and stimulating metaphors about the meaning and the function of their instrument. There are a few times during the film where the action is interrupted by a large rumble in the building. We don't know what this is exactly until the end of the film. The film transforms from poetic, to pure comical delight, to complete chaos, to lyrical beauty when the musicians play the music.

Composer Nino Rota's contribution was an immense one. He composed all of the pieces the musicians play in the film, and I believe they the music is absolutely wonderful (my personal favorite of Rota's compositions for "Orchestra Rehearsal" being the final piece the orchestra performs). This was the last time Rota scored a Fellini film, he died the next year.

I also must comment on the top-notch cinematography, which is quintessentially Felliniesque (ex. incredible long shots of the orchestra playing, shots of musicians lined up in very particular angles, and a couple of sweeping pans).

Anybody who loves orchestral music will like this film to some degree. I happen to immensely love Fellini, Rota, AND orchestral music, so for me, this film is nothing short of absolutely marvelous entertainment!

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13 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Great depiction of power struggle with excellent music, 26 May 2006
9/10
Author: Bert van Leeuwen from Netherlands

This movie is one of my all-time favourites: through the "metaphor" of music, a universal picture of a power struggle is shown. Although this may appear 'thin', many layers of this struggle are peeled off. The German (looking) conductor appears to portray an easy comparison to Adolf Hitler, but another could be to Herbert von Karajan, the dictatorial conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker. And then there is the great music score, that still lingers in my head, although I have not been able to find a recording of it (CD/LP?)(after almost 30 years!). I saw this movie again some years ago and it does not look dated. While I am not a Fellini adept and this movie was seen as one of his minor ones, this is a real classic to me.

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10 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
the Orchestra as a microcosm of society, or a small Fellini exercise, you decide- I think it's both, 15 August 2005
8/10
Author: MisterWhiplash from United States

In most of Federico Fellini's best films, he made big statements about the way we live and socialize with each other and deal with ourselves as much as the past, all within exciting, tragic-comic film-making style. Orchestra Rehearsal does the same, though in a shorter amount of time. We are given a (union) orchestra in Italy, who's members vary from young adults to the old timers, women, introverts, trouble makers, and so forth, who each have their own music of choice (or sometimes of necessity). The conductor is frustrated- he can barely get the orchestra to concentrate much less really practice, and the union problems get things caught in the way as they rip through the ironically happy and (typically) carnival-like pieces. There's a break taken, which is when everything starts to slowly, but surely, wind down and breakdown among the musicians. In the meantime a television crew stands by taking 'interviews' of the musicians, their opinions, their little 'off' moments, signaling the anarchy that will soon ensue.

The interviews themselves are some of the strongest, funniest parts of the film- the interviewers get (sometimes begrudgingly) words on their instruments, why they play, how they play, and what role their music has in the world. These interviews can also be hit-or-miss sometimes, and because of the constant dialog (there's sometimes barely a breath to be had, as is the beautiful claustrophobic style in Fellini's characters), there's almost too much information going on. There's also the tendency for the character(s), whom are mostly portrayed by un-professionals (to acting, not to music of course), to not be very convincing, or even a little boring (the conductor's monologue in his room, for example, is one of the weaker parts of the film for me). But then it does start to pick up in insane, trademark Fellini fashion as the musicians rebel, and an unexpected surprise comes heading their way.

It's likely that Orchestra Rehearsal isn't one of Fellini's very best films, but it is one that captivates as it bemuses, brings laughs as it does thought, and it isn't necessarily a wasteful experience (some may not like it much at all, at least in comparison to his masterpieces). Not to forget the incalculable, lasting power of Nina Rota's music, which drives the film's bombastic, heart-racing rehearsing scenes (there is also humor underneath much of the music, like when the musicians have their own little solos as jokes). There's something always satisfying when a composer is on the same page as the director he's writing for, and few were ever so in tune as Fellini and Rota. And even during some parts that don't add up, their combination helps out a lot. As mentioned before, one could even think deeper into the ideas and thoughts and characters in the film as almost a microcosm of society itself, its easy-going people, its hard-nosed people, its incendiaries, its nostalgics, and its normals and eccentrics. Or, one can just take the Fellini ride, so to speak, and enjoy some 70 minutes with Fellini & company.

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8 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Unique, hyper-significant, Fellini over himself, 6 December 2008
10/10
Author: Mihnea the Pitbull from Romania

Some fully creditable critics deemed "Prova d'orchestra" as being Fellini's main masterpiece. Although recognizing their slight exaggeration, I still can fully empathize with their point. The movie is one of the most intelligent, stylish and personal instances of the much used (and abused) recipe of the "social microcosm". Of course, Fellini's trick to build up a parable of society by using the orchestra parallel is not only original, but also very efficient: the metaphors and symbols resulting from this are both powerful and humorous, in an atrociously satyric vein.

Also, it's very interesting to note the gradual glissando from realism to hyperbole, and from cold detachment to paranoid hysteria; as such, what started as a pseudo-documentary, impartial and technical, gradually turns into a major pandemonium, to culminate with the hallucinatory profiling of the demolition iron ball, as an omen of doom - that being the point where the artist really meets the divine, both as meaning, and as means.

One should also notice the masterfully style of shooting the orchestra, the people and the instruments, to build up the cinematographic symphony layered over the musical one, and to create that irresistibly fast-paced narrative in images, that makes the movie so exciting and captivating - it's literally to be watched on the edge on your seat, although nothing more spectacular happens than an orchestra rehearsing in a disaffected church... all being the result of Fellini's skillful cinematography.

At last, one couldn't depart any reference to this masterpiece without mentioning at least in passing the haunting finale. Although I always regarded with political objectivity and historical honesty the national-socialist ideology, goals and means, I must confess that I fully assimilate Fellini's powerful warning about any dictatorial excesses. Balduin Bass' voice rising in a Hitlerian monologue is an efficient and pointed mean of expression and style - and his last line after fade out, "Signori... Da capo!", indeed MAKES A POINT!

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5 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
A 'documentary'?, 12 January 2007
8/10
Author: ecaprarie from Italy

It is rather neglected a movie by Fellini, but I agree with those who see it as a 'metaphor' of the Italian society; not of the Italian society in general, but of the Italian society at the end of the '70s. After 1968, there was turmoil in the country and the artist's message is quite clear, apparently: prolonged social strife can lead to dictatorial outcomes. The message is not so clear at the beginning of the film and it might be seen as a sort of a 'documentary', but when that huge stone 'ball' starts pounding on the building where the 'orchestra' are rehearsing and a faraway voice starts becoming more and more clear and strong, Fellini's message becomes obvious.

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4 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Intelligent, elegant, refined, 21 December 2008
10/10
Author: Jules et Jim from Russian Federation

A rare jewel in Fellini's filmography.

While the unchained genius who broke off with Neorealism to build up his own personal brand of art reaches such absolute heights of delirium as in "Satyricon", "Casanova" or "E la nave va", here he is grave, pondered, sober, using a very fine irony to cast on his message about human society.

One can relate this movie rather to "I Clowns", "Roma" and "Amarcord". Splendid in everything, and deeply permeated by the Great Federico's bright mind. Some people go even to declare it the best Fellini ever - and it wouldn't be too easy to contradict them!

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4 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
The People Vs. the Director, 24 April 2006
6/10
Author: nycritic

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

A somewhat failed experience, but still worth the watch. ORCHESTRA REHEARSAL has been considered a lesser Fellini and it shows -- the story is pared down to its essential, any dream sequence or sequences filmed out of context from the original story are nowhere to be seen, and the action takes place and resolves itself in what seems to be real time, which is the movie's 72 minute duration.

It can be a political allegory or simply what it is at face value: people gathering together in locked quarters, coming from different walks of life, being introduced to each others, telling bits and pieces of their life stories through the instruments they play, with the occasional commentaries indicating a self-importance that these people have of their position in the "orchestra".

That it takes place in a burial ground for popes enhances its symbolic value and Fellini's attitudes towards religion and religious figures and their relationship to the common people and vice versa. Interesting to see that the conductor is the only person in authority and happens to be German -- it made me wonder what Fellini might be trying to say here, but it seems to express an aversion to tyranny as the conductor is not what I would call an easy person to get along with. Even when he yammers in soft tones there is a harshness about him that is telling. He wants the musicians to perform beauty, art in music, and berates them horribly for not doing so. It then becomes not a "will they revolt" as to a countdown to their revolt -- people in general will not tolerate micro-management of any kind for more than they have to, and that in fact could be another of the film's many interpretations if applied to an office setting of a company considered a "sacred rock" of industry. It's an even more visually punch when Fellini bulldozes the auditorium at the very climax -- it's as if the movie would have folded itself outwards into the realms of Fellini the director to Fellini as God striking this place dead in its tracks to have order being restored; it's an arresting sequence, powerful in meaning, and one that elevates this short movie from what would have been an unremarkable experience.

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6 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
appears to be a parable, 12 September 2003
8/10
Author: xenophil from Northern California

This miniature movie's tempo builds, stops and starts in that comical, jerky way characteristic of Fellini. It's one of the things I like.

The interviews are a riot!

It appears to be a parable of the last few hundred years of European history.

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8 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
The anatomy of crisis, 11 February 1999
9/10
Author: oleh_k from Boulder, CO

While the movie analyzes the roots and resolution of social revolt, what I like the most about it, is the personalized world-view of the musicians, as well as an exceptional music drive. My favorite Fellini and Rota. 10/10.

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What i felt, 2 October 2011
8/10
Author: Aboudonya from Egypt

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

While the musicians are faced by the decaying society...decaying world we live in....they wanted to scream....they should scream....or better to produce a lovely symphony...that even if no one hears....no one knows about...They are proud of playing! The film is so subtle in acting...the love of musicians to their instruments is inspiring and truly helps us Audience to understand how it means to them to play...and to fight to gain this right.. The Location of the rehearsal...and what it stands for as an ancient church in a wolrd of atheists....to be blown away for no apparent reason...while the place can be used....to rehearse Orchestra....like the musicians were trying to capture the last seconds of the place of the old....before it collapses....like them...their love...their dreams!

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