THE FILMS THA
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER Pere Portabella
WRITERS Xavier Albertí,
Pere Portabella, Carles Santos
CINEMATOGRAPHER Tomás Pladevall
T GOT AWA
EDITOR Òskar Gómez
CAST Christian Brembeck, Alex Brendemuhl,
Feodor Atkine, Daniel Ligorio, Georg C. Biller,
Georgina Cardona, Franz Schuchart
Y
The Silence Before Bach
Die Stille vor Bach
Spain 102 minutes
Spanish, German, and Catalan with English subtitles
A blind piano tuner, a harmonica-playing truck driver, and a tap-
dancing horse are just three of the unlikely bedfellows in Catalan
director Pere Portabella’s playful, dazzlingly original meditation on
the great German composer’s influence across the centuries and the
PERE PORTABELLA
blurred borders of the new Europe. Elsewhere, a mysteriously
BORN: >�Vi���>]�-�>���U November 11,1929
self-propelled player piano rolls about a gallery floor, and every seat
on a subway car is occupied by professional cellists. Bach himself
even appears, briefly, in scenes that suggest a low-fi bio-pic, as does
Felix Mendelssohn, discovering the sheet music for the "St. Matthew
Passion" concealed in an unassuming piece of butcher’s wrap. And so
Portabella—a veteran producer and politician who has also managed
to create a wonderfully idiosyncratic body of genre-bending avant-
XAVIER ALBERTÍ
garde films—hopscotches merrily across the centuries with a lightness
BORN: ���i��`i�>�]�-�>���U 1962
of touch and freedom of form that recalls the late films of Portugal’s
Manoel de Oliveira. A rare treat for fans of cinema and classical music
alike.
— Scott Foundas
CARLES SANTOS
BORN: 6��>���]�-�>���U 1940
'%%.Adh6c\ZaZh;^ab;Zhi^kVa 141
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