Review of Vision From the Life of Hildegard Von Bingen
Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen
2009, NR, 111 min. Directed by Margarethe von Trotta. Starring Barbara Sukowa, Heino Ferch, Hannah Herzsprung, Alexander Held, Lena Stolze, Sunnyi Melles.
REVIEWED By Marjorie Baumgarten, Fri., Dec. 10, 2010
The fifth collaboration between writer/managing director von Trotta and cute leading lady Sukowa, both icons of the German New Moving ridge, finds them in a nunnery. Specifically, they have combined forces to tell the life story of Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th century Benedictine nun, a woman of many talents and mystical visions. Throughout her career, she composed music that remains distinctive among medieval works, wrote plays and poetry, authored several books that described her visions, and oversaw the Benedictines' production of illuminated manuscripts. She was likewise an herbalist who used her noesis for medicinal and ecological purposes. Inside the male-dominated hierarchy of the church, Hildegard figured out how to use diplomacy and strategy to achieve her aims. It is for all these reasons and more that Hildegard has become a bailiwick of renewed study for feminist scholars in recent decades. Not much is known most Hildegard'southward early life: Built-in only a couple years before the turn of the millennium, Hildegard was a sickly child who was prone to visions and, at the age of 8, was given – or tithed – by her parents to the church building. She grew upward in the monastic life, and her accomplishments began to earn notice after 1136, when she was elected to be the magistra of her community past her boyfriend nuns. Von Trotta and Sukowa create a very nuanced written report of Hildegard, 1 that imbues the figure with homo foibles in a number sufficient to keep at bay any hagiographic impulses. Green-eyed and competition are shown to be bug with which Hildegard and the other sisters struggle (although, to be fair, the nuns probably didn't view them as "issues" so much as sins). Withal, Hildegard is clearly portrayed as a forward thinker: She argues with her superior, Abbot Kuno (Held), and instructs her self-flagellation-prone sisters and brethren that "God wants mercy, not cede." Another fourth dimension, she condemns the "double standard" (there's that 21st century terminology once more) that allows a monk to remain cloistered after he impregnates a nun. Her plays, during which the nuns doffed their habits, costumed themselves in white silk gowns, and allow downwardly their hair, caused some conniptions amidst the more austere Benedictine monks, some of whom already had reasons to resent Hildegard's shining lite. Lite, however, is exactly what is missing from this biopic. Von Trotta'southward flick is informative, instructive, intriguing, and polished, yet it finds no ecstasy – religious or otherwise. Though these nuns can sing, they are no singing nuns – which is a good thing, for certain, although a little more than pizzazz wouldn't hurt.
A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Relate has been Austin's independent news source for well-nigh 40 years, expressing the customs'southward political and ecology concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your back up to continue supplying Austin with contained, gratuitous press. If existent news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or any you can afford, to assistance keep our journalism on stands.
Back up the Relate
READ More than
More than Margarethe von Trotta Films
Von Trotta puts a human being face up on 1943's Rosenstrasse insurgence, one of the few public, and moreover, successful denizen protests against the power of the Nazi regime.
Marjorie Baumgarten, Dec. ten, 2004
More than by Marjorie Baumgarten
Survival drama is epic, even if the story feels small
March 25, 2022
Sarah Jones' sexual practice work play becomes a self-belittling moving picture
March 22, 2022
KEYWORDS FOR THIS FILM
Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen, Margarethe von Trotta, Barbara Sukowa, Heino Ferch, Hannah Herzsprung, Alexander Held, Lena Stolze, Sunnyi Melles
MORE IN THE ARCHIVES
Source: https://www.austinchronicle.com/events/film/2010-12-10/vision-from-the-life-of-hildegard-von-bingen/
Belum ada Komentar untuk "Review of Vision From the Life of Hildegard Von Bingen"
Posting Komentar