Die Stille vor Bach (2007)

Director:

Pere Portabella

Writers:

Xavier Albertí (writer)
Pere Portabella (writer)

Release Date:

21 December 2007 (Spain)

Genre:

Musical

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Nonlinear Timeline | Singer | Organ | Piano | Organ Playing

Awards:

2 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Christian Atanasiu	...	Mayordomo
Féodor Atkine	...	Vendedor de pianos
George-Christoph Biller	...	Himself
Christian Brembeck	...	J. S. Bach
Àlex Brendemühl	...	Camioner
Georgina Cardona	...	Violonchelista
Lucien Dekoster	...	Afinador de pianos
Beatriz Ferrer-Salat	...	Amazona
Gertrud Kossler	...	Clienta
Bert Kripstädt	...	Camarero
Lina Lambert	...	Madre de Mendelssohn
Daniel Ligorio	...	F. Mendelssohn
Jordi Llordella	...	Amigo de Mendelssohn
Ferran Ruiz	...	Hijo de Bach
Thomas Sauerteig	...	Amigo de la violonchelista
Franz Schuchart	...	Guía turístico
Antonio Serrano	...	Acompañante del camionero
Fanny Silvestre	...	Anna Magdalena Bach
Mariona Solanas	...	Hija de Bach
Àlvar Triay	...	Camionero del Bar
Daniela Wick	...	Descendiente de Bach
Jens Wittwer	...	Hijo mayor de Bach
Johannes Zametzer	...	Carnicero

Also Known As:

El silenci abans de Bach (Spain: Catalan title)
El silencio antes de Bach (Spain: Castilian title)
The Silence Before Bach (USA) (new title)

Runtime:

Spain:102 min

Country:

Spain

Language:

Spanish | German | Catalan

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

France:U

Filming Locations:

Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain

Company:

Films 59

The music that fills the void

The first sequence of "Die Stille vor Bach" is highly significant: a completely white piece, similar to an art gallery, the camera makes a long travelling in a complete silence and then appears a mechanical piano moving freely while plays a piece Bach. In the next scene a blind man plays a new piece accompanied by his dog German shepherd. Although the film is an open book, an excellent piece of camera to be reinterpreted in intimate spaces and inclined to reflection, the segment that has captivated me most deeply is the translation in images of how music can fill the void of people throughout history and in particular since the time that Bach changed the way of conceiving music reinterpreting the technique of low encryption. The film of Portabella, like all his films, is strongly experimental and avant-gardist in its technical planning, full of discrete virtuous details, with a non - narrative development: scenes take place in a more aesthetic narrative, more intellectualized than purely logical and the film has the ambition to translate the spiritual world of Bach's music in a series of visual images of great power despite its apparent simplicity as the concert of violoncellists wagon in the subway or the image of the staff with the music of Bach. As expresses another of the images in this film, "Die Stille vor Bach" is a journey into the bowels of music, to its essence and has the great merit of represent a world of sensations in a motion picture that sometimes becomes a bit topical, as the image of the half-naked woman playing the cello but others makes subtle tributes to the History of Art, such as the back of the subway cellist, reminiscent of Man Ray's "Women-Violin" or the same half-naked cellist, a voluptuous figuration of Malevitch's "White on White".