{"id":8115,"date":"2012-12-01T10:33:21","date_gmt":"2012-12-01T15:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=8115"},"modified":"2012-12-01T10:33:21","modified_gmt":"2012-12-01T15:33:21","slug":"a-late-quartet-film-a-wonderful-example-of-classical-music-reflecting-universal-themes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2012\/12\/01\/a-late-quartet-film-a-wonderful-example-of-classical-music-reflecting-universal-themes\/","title":{"rendered":"A Late Quartet film a wonderful example of classical music reflecting universal themes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mark Ivanir, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener and Christopher Walken are members of the fictional Fugue Quartet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A Late Quartet, a film about the deep fissures that can open up among four longtime collaborators who happen to be classical musicians, is an engrossing hour-and-a-half of fine drama composed with the same care as the music in its soundtrack.<\/p>\n

The film by Yaron Zilberman, which was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival nearly three months ago, opened yesterday at the Varsity Cinemas.<\/p>\n

It’s a powerful psychological journey that examines several different aspects of human relationships — as colleagues, as life partners, as lovers and as parents and children — that just happens to revolve around the fate of a busy, established, world-famous string quartet (think Emerson or Juilliard as role models) and the music of Ludwig van Beethoven.<\/p>\n

The music is window dressing, not the point of the story. But, from a personal point of view, it’s wonderful to see a film whose characters and their interrelationships are composed with the same laying out of themes and their development as one finds in the music itself.<\/p>\n

It is also refreshing to see classical music not treated reverentially, but as an everyday fact of life for the people whose lives become part of hours for a few minutes.<\/p>\n

The real dramatic juice here is the fodder of all great tales: mortality, ambition, lust, jealousy and even revenge, and the four principal actors — Mark Ivanir, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener and Christopher Walken — deploy their considerable skills with subtle force.<\/p>\n

Each relationship between these four people — as well as a fifth, younger character portrayed by Imogen Poots in what I thought was a strangely flighty performance — is depicted on several levels, including miscellaneous subtexts and psychological manipulations. The ending is ambiguous. We are left by Zilberman — as by our real lives — in a state of uncertainty about what the future may hold.<\/p>\n

It’s a great, grounding, deeply satisfying journey into something serious at this frivolous time of year.<\/p>\n

Here<\/a> are the current Varsity showtimes. The trailer:<\/p>\n