PREVIOUSLY AT FILM FORUM
Scene from THE SILENCE BEFORE BACH

THE SILENCE
BEFORE BACH

Directed by Pere Portabella

“BEGUILING. 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. Like the music it celebrates, this is a film made in glory of the world.”
– Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
“At once cerebral film essay and unsweetened ear candy. A high-toned experimental features that eschews narrative and ponders the social history of music.”
– J. Hoberman, Village Voice

 “Brings Bach’s music to life with a mysterious, magnificent blend of drama, documentary, and quasi-surrealist whimsy. Beginning with a scene of a player piano rattling off the Goldberg Variations while rolling through a bright, bare loft, Portabella tickles the senses with a series of skits… From puckish humor and borderline kitsch, a great and serious notion emerges: the construction of modern Europe on the basis of classical music.”
 – Richard Brody, The New Yorker

 Scene from THE SILENCE BEFORE BACHScene from THE SILENCE BEFORE BACH
“Haunting, elegiac and dazzling!” – New York Magazine

 “One of the year’s major film events. The Catalan master hasn’t lost his cutting-edge instincts or the enigmatic meter that underlies his work… his writing like calligraphy, his treatment of space architectonic, and his narrative free-floating.”
– Film Comment
“DELECTABLE! Gorgeous lensing and art direction and some of the world’s most beautiful music!”
– V.A. Musetto, New York Post

 “A meditation on the power of music to transcend geography and time and unite humanity in a kind of universal ecstasy. Evokes the spirit and legacy of this artist, shedding light on the lasting beauty of his work.”
– S. James Snyder, The New York Sun

 “Every moment alive with intelligence. The title derives from a comment by E. M. Cioran asserting that before Bach there was only stillness, and that his music justifies existence.”
 – Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic

Pere Portabella, the legendary Spanish Surrealist and 78-year-old enfant terrible, was honored with a retrospective last fall at the Museum of Modern Art. His newest and arguably greatest film, THE SILENCE BEFORE BACH, “brings Bach’s music to life with a mysterious, magnificent blend of drama, documentary, and quasi-surrealist whimsy. Beginning with a scene of a player piano rattling off the Goldberg Variations while rolling through a bright, bare loft, Portabella tickles the senses with a series of skits... From puckish humor and borderline kitsch, a great and serious notion emerges: the construction of modern Europe on the basis of classical music.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker

SPAIN • 2007 • 102 MINUTES • IN SPANISH, CATALAN & GERMAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES • FILMSOURCE INFORMATION