Parsifal (1982)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Hans-Jürgen Syberberg

Writer:

Richard Wagner (text)

Release Date:

1 December 1983 (Australia)

Genre:

Drama | Music

Plot:

Richard Wagner's last opera has remained controversial since its first performance for its unique, and...

Plot Keywords:

Opera | Filmed Opera | Based On Opera

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Armin Jordan	...	Amfortas
Robert Lloyd	...	Gurnemanz
Martin Sperr	...	Titurel
Michael Kutter	...	Parsifal 1
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Edith Clever	...	Kundry
Stephanie Corler
Anahita Farroschad
Miriam Feldman
Johanna Fink
Thomas Fink	...	2nd Squire
Rudolph Gabler	...	1st Knight of the Grail
Monika Gärtner	...	1st Squire
Reiner Goldberg	...	Parsifal (voice)
Alexandra Grunsberg
Aage Haugland	...	Klingsor
Eva Kessler
Vivian Kintisch
Catharina Klemm
Judith Klemm
Karin Krick	...	Parsifal 2
Sabine Kueckelmann
Martina Lanzinger
David Luther	...	Young Parsifal
Isabelle Malbrun
David Meyer	...	3rd Squire
Yvonne Minton	...	Kundry (voice)
Antonia Preser
Catharina Preser
Caroline Riollot
Guillemette Riollot
Sofia Romani
Bruno Romani-Versteeg	...	3rd Knight of the Grail
Judith Schmidt	...	4th Squire
Wolfgang Schöne	...	Amfortas (voice)
Claudia Schumann
Bettina Stiller
Amelie Syberberg	...	Bearer of the Grail
Anya Tölle
Urban von Klebelsberg	...	2nd Knight of the Grail
Sophie von Uslar
Anette Woll

Also Known As:

Parsifal (France)

Runtime:

USA:255 min

Country:

France | West Germany

Language:

German

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Australia:G | UK:PG | USA:PG

Company:

Artificial Eye

Trivia:

Among the severed heads at the base of the broken phallus in Klingsor's castle (symbolizing the self-castration that gave the wizard his powers -- this is one weird opera) are those of Karl Marx, Wagner himself...and Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher who was one of Wagner's most devoted champions until he broke with him over this very opera (he despised Christianity as a "slave" religion and thought Wagner had caved in to bourgeois morality).

Movie Connections:

Version of Parsifal (1999) (TV)

An Old Favorite Dates Badly, Sorry to Say.

Back when I saw this film when it came out first run at the local art theater, it blew me away. When I tried to get into it again after locating a DVD copy, I couldn't sit through it. Most of the trappings of Syberburg's much-vaunted style have the feel of artsy gimmicks of his hot period, the late 70s and early 80s. The puppets, which are part of this scene, don't bother me half as much as the projection of images over everything on stage, and the shifting video slide show backgrounds. This technique seems to have been a solution that Syberburg believed in deeply-- and to feel he was leading the avant pack in using. But a solution to what, I'm not sure. To break up basically static tableau setups, yes. To speak to the wide-wandering emotional interior state of the films participants, certainly. But why make the film auditorium-bound in the first place if it's restless, ceaseless movement you crave? --Budget limitations? --Because you feel challenged or amused tinkering around with active/static dynamics? Either of these reasons is acceptable to me, but I don't find the fruit of this experimentation especially successful, or more, very durable.

The music is great, and I DO yearn for something more eccentric or intense than the standard PBS/Met production with guys standing around bellowing in obvious crepe whiskers and stage dirt. But this film goes arty in a way that doesn't speak to many people any more, and as far as I'm concerned, it way overshoots the crazed artist mark. A little less please.