70
Metascore
5 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75New York PostV.A. MusettoNew York PostV.A. MusettoUnless you are offended by a little female nudity, The Silence Before Bach will shock you not. But it will provide gorgeous lensing and art direction and some of the world's most beautiful music.
- 75TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghTV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghPortabella has no interest in conventional biography -- it's hard not to suspect that he included the tale of Felix Mendelsson (Daniel Ligorio) discovering the score for the "St. Matthew Passion" wrapping a meat delivery precisely BECAUSE it's probably apocryphal.
- 70VarietyRonnie ScheibVarietyRonnie ScheibArguably stronger conceptually than visually, surreal mix of the unexpected and the banal is definitely not to everybody's taste. But the music is inarguably sublime.
- 70Village VoiceJ. HobermanVillage VoiceJ. HobermanNot only very civilized--this cool, deliberate film suggests that Bach's music is the quintessence of European civilization.
- 70The New York TimesManohla DargisThe New York TimesManohla DargisThe film demands engagement and a kind of surrender, a willingness to enter into a work shaped by correlation, metaphor and metonymy, by beautiful images and fragments of ideas, a work that locates the music in the twitching of a dog’s ears, in the curve of a woman’s belly, a child’s song and an adult’s reverie.