Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

[Flex Mentallo]

The 1882 production of the former is recreated in puppet form during the prelude, with both costumes and faces modeled from photographs.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

A casement of the room in the Palazzo Vendramin, where Wagner died, is used as a backdrop.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Heads of Aeschylus, King Ludwig, Nietzsche, Marx and Wagner himself lie at the foot of Klingsor's throne.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Mathilde Wesendonk and Judith Gautier are glimpsed among the flower maidens.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

The approach to the hall of the Grail is down a flag-lined corridor -- a procession, backward in time, through the history of Germany into a world of myth.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

The destruction of Germany is evoked at the beginning with postcards of the ruins.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

We see various puppets of Wagner, including a realization of André Gill's caricature of Wagner hammering at a human ear.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Yet the acting performances themselves are traditional and the concentration of the camera on the performers' faces focuses the attention on the emotion at the heart of the opera.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Syberberg often used very long takes, with a complex choreography of camera movements, to keep the attention on the drama, and to avoid breaking up the slow unfolding of Wagner's musical themes by cuts in the images.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Hence Syberberg also allows Edith Clever's bravura performance to unfold, so that he lets us experience Parsifal with an intensity and directness not possible on the stage.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

In this immensely ambitious work Syberberg presents Wagner's life, music and thought. He also presents a critique of those same things, whilst mounting a sumptuous and resonant production of the opera that is a feast for the eyes and ears, as Newsweek said, "The film performs the extraordinary feat of both splendidly presenting and forcibly challenging a consummate work of art."

 

[Flex Mentallo]

HEALING THE WOUND

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Amfortas, King of the Grail Knights, lies in the castle of Monsalvat bearing a wound that never heals.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

The Holy Spear, which pierced the side of the Redeemer on the Cross, and the Holy Grail, which caught the flowing blood, had come to Monsalvat to be guarded by the Knights of the Grail under the rule of Titurel, father of Amfortas.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Klingsor had yearned to join the Knights but, unable to keep impure thoughts from his mind, resorted to self-castration, causing him to be expelled from the Order.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Klingsor then set himself up in opposition to the realm of the Grail, learning dark arts,

 

[Flex Mentallo]

claiming the valley domain below and filling it with beautiful Flower-maidens to seduce and enthrall wayward Grail Knights.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

It was here that Amfortas lost the Holy Spear, seduced by the irresistibly beautiful Kundry at the behest of Klingsor, who seizes the spear and wounds Amfortas.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Amfortas later has a holy vision, which tells him to wait for a "pure fool, enlightened by compassion" who will finally heal the wound.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Traveling through the forest below the castle, Parsifal (“fal parsi” = “holy fool”) slays a swan for which Gurnemanz, Knight of the Grail, chastises him.