The Silence Before Bach

Real-life drama and documentary-style filmmaking blend with surrealistic whimsy in director Pere Portabella's passionate look at the ties between classical music and the construction of contemporary Europe. From a scene of Bach patiently teaching his son Christoph Friedrich how to play the piano to a truck driver who plays the composer's music on his harmonica, a pianist who plays the Goldberg Variations while rolling through his enormous loft, a Bach impersonator leading tourists through Leipzig, and Felix Mendelssohn's curious discovery of the St. Matthew Passion via a piece of meat wrapped in sheet music, this puckish, almost kitsch collection of skits takes a playful look at the legacy of a classical composer whose music still retains the power to inspire and influence.