Berlinale award
Version of the Oedipus saga: “Music” by Angela Schanelec
Oedipus is called Jon in “Music”. He and Iro (Agathe Bonitzer) become a couple. photo
© -/Grandfilm/dpa
You can hardly grasp the plot, but you can let yourself be carried away by the wonderful shots. Above all, “Music” by Angela Schanelec requires patience from its audience.
The scenes are actually more reminiscent of paintings. Director Angela Schanelec won a Silver Bear for Best Screenplay with “Music” at this year’s Berlinale. A few weeks later the film will be released in cinemas. A fragmentary version of the Oedipus saga is told, relocated to Greece in the 1980s, to today and to present-day Berlin.
In the beginning, a newborn boy is found, whose story is followed. At some point he is guilty of manslaughter. The film is more of a series of snapshots than a continuous story. If you don’t know the Oedipus saga well, you probably won’t be able to recognize it.
With her film, Schanelec offers various images that allow many associations with thoughts and feelings. This is difficult for some, attractive for others. Above all, it requires patience. Not only because a number of recordings are quite static. But also because you have to put up with the fact that not everything in the film is immediately apparent, sometimes not at all.
Music, Germany/France/Serbia 2023, 108 minutes, FSK from 12 years, by Angela Schanelec, with Aliocha Schneider, Agathe Bonitzer