MUSIC World Cinema

Preceded by DAUGHTERS OF FIRE 

Abandoned in a storm as a child, Ion is taken in and raised an orphan. Years later, he will murder his anonymous attacker and be sent to prison for patricide. There, he meets and falls in love with a prison guard who is revealed to be his mother. Its plot, recognizably Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex,” is of little concern to Germany’s most uncompromising filmmaker, Angela Schanelec. Instead, her latest conundrum revels in fragmentation, jolting temporal jumps and meticulously precise compositions – stunningly lensed by cinematographer Ivan Markovic. Schanelec’s now characteristic formal precision imbues the smallest of details with profound meaning, though leaves their ready interpretation teasingly out of reach. Winner of the Berlinale Silver Bear for Best Screenplay and a transfixing addition to the Schanelec output, MUSIC – with its Greek setting and baroque music – marks her most visually and sonically pleasing film to date. –Malin Kan