MY mother made me do it – study classical piano for 12 years. I hated every note, but she insisted. Today, I can play nary a tune.
After watching Pere Portabella’s delectable “The Silence Before Bach,” I wished I had paid more attention to my teacher, Max Drittler, so I could sit down at the piano and dash off a bit of Bach.
“Silence” is a series of vignettes that span the centuries and revolve around the music of Bach, with a little Felix Mendelssohn and Gyorgy Ligeti thrown in.
A player piano moves by itself around an empty loft, emitting Bach’s “Goldberg Variations.” A trainload of cellists performs a sonata. Mendelssohn (Daniel Ligorio) discovers the “St. Matthew Passion” on paper used to wrap a bloody piece of meat.
Portabella is a 78-year-old Spanish experimental filmmaker who got into trouble with the Franco government when he produced the naughty “Viridiana” for Luis Bunuel in 1961. (A nun loses her innocence to her lecherous uncle.)
This is his 12th film since 1967.
Unless 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.
THE SILENCE BEFORE BACH
Mostly Bach.
In Spanish, Catalan, German and Italian, with English subtitles. Running time: 102 minutes. Not rated (nudity). At Film Forum, Houston Street, west of Sixth Avenue.