Review of Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968) by Phillip G — 26 Apr 2008

This one really is from the movement: I saw, you didn't.

Well, I don't want to write a long review, but before watching this you must know that this is different than any other movie you ever watched. The movie will end and you will ask yourself: "what the hell I just saw?".

Then you will start thinking and you'll remember that the movie is about Bach, this is the beginning, but why that camera that never moves? That cruel cuts between scenes? That plans without faces almost all the time?

Well, when you talk about Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach you must remember that the cinema has resources to bring the watcher to the screen, to make him closer to the character and that's what CoAMB has of different: the distance.

You know Bach's face, you know his wife's face, she's the narrator of the story, fully of names that you, probably, won't give a face. The camera does not move (just in a few moments), and when it does isn't to get closer to Bach, as example, but to film the singer.

All the resources that the cinema offers to bring the watcher are denied by Straub and Huillet to give emphasis to the music. There's no intimacy, no feelings in the edition, neither in the characters.

See the poster here?

"A Masterpiece. This Film is Music".

It could not explain better by another way.