inasmuch as THIS is what it's good for - amongst the perhaps most obvious one of entertaining - i.e. the ability to take us on a trip through history and meet people within the context of what we know, rounded out with a good writer's imagination
and as a result, make us THINK about what really happened, and/or how it FELT to be the people portrayed, in those days; what other medium can do this as easily, really and truly? I adore film-making for this capacity but it's so often overlooked in the mad rush for box office profits, which puts movies firmly in the money-making Entertainment category, first and foremost, frequently regardless of content, characters, correct costuming
So, I loved this movie and found it completely absorbing, though I'm well aware it won't appeal to 'the masses', basically because it's a quintessentially French ('foreign') film which lacks the overt Drama and character arcs of Hollywood and the colourful characters and quirky story lines of other U.S.A. movies. It's food for thought over food for entertainment (though I WAS entertained in the process, too - but then I possess an old-fashioned attention span of more than 5 minutes, and don't need a car-chase or anything to blow up in order to feel something!) ;) Especially telling were what are most likely the historical truisms; the fact that Nannerl was an older sister who almost certainly DID co-create (if not co-write, as she was refused tuition) her famously talented younger brother's early works, completely uncredited - and this of course is a perennial problem for female artistes everywhere, even today (if it's not their brothers, then for their boyfriends &/or significant others who absorb their contributions as natural extensions of themselves, rather than acknowledging them at very least, as addendums given to them as gifts by another person other than themselves), along with the problem of not receiving sufficient support from their fathers for their innate talent, on the basis of being a girl. I really appreciated the fact that the entire problem of gender was shown throughout this film in a genteel and non-bombastic way, by comparisons and conversations void of overtly angry emotions - which, and we so easily tend to forget this fact - were within the context of the society(ies) shown in this particular time & place, INDULGENCES which really & truly only the most powerful (e.g. the Dauphin), could afford to show, far less, vent; we forget, the era of all-out Self-Expression in the West really only arose post-war across all classes & societies. This was not Italy, after all, nor America or Britain in the '60s or '70s+, but chiefly the priories and courts of France, a couple of decades BEFORE the revolution; best behaviour between family members so close-knit as the Mozarts, who for so many years shared such close quarters as coach carriages and bedrooms in the houses of hosts, was likely the norm; feelings festered under the surface because it wasn't safe to fully express them, and then they were complicated - painfully - by deep feelings of love, appreciation, and humility fostered by the awareness of how much humiliation the average person had to put up with during the course of their lives, just to survive; the waiting on a prince for 3 whole weeks while he indulged in excesses they could never afford, wasting this talented family's time, which they would have had to 'swallow' without a whimper, was a very good example. We in our (relative) freedom forget how self-expression is a part of being free - which most people were not. No matter how talented - which evidently, Leopold, Nannerl & little Wolfgang ALL were, back then, talent was the ticket but not the money-maker, per se & women never owned any money anyway, no matter what work they did, nor even who they married. So they were the subjects of men, which feminist point is pointed out succinctly yet never with a big banging of any drums! The fact that Mrs. Mozart adored her talented, forceful and resourceful husband, was a bonus - and later in life, a model unconsciously copied by her famous surviving (remember, these were her only two children who lived, so death was an ever-present reminder to boot in the lives of these people and indeed most of the populace back then) son, but was not necessarily guaranteed in every marriage. The touching small scene of the ill-fated fifteen year old future Marie Antoinette already doting on pleasing her deeply troubled young widowed husband, speaks volumes to this - she was a woman of her time, determined to make the most of her lot in life, ergo, to become a good and dutiful wife something which Nannerl simply cannot strive to do till the advanced (back then) age of 32 - and when we watch this movie in it's entirety, even setting aside the imagined/fictitious aspects of her story - we know, why.
So, I loved this movie and found it completely absorbing, though I'm well aware it won't appeal to 'the masses', basically because it's a quintessentially French ('foreign') film which lacks the overt Drama and character arcs of Hollywood and the colourful characters and quirky story lines of other U.S.A. movies. It's food for thought over food for entertainment (though I WAS entertained in the process, too - but then I possess an old-fashioned attention span of more than 5 minutes, and don't need a car-chase or anything to blow up in order to feel something!) ;) Especially telling were what are most likely the historical truisms; the fact that Nannerl was an older sister who almost certainly DID co-create (if not co-write, as she was refused tuition) her famously talented younger brother's early works, completely uncredited - and this of course is a perennial problem for female artistes everywhere, even today (if it's not their brothers, then for their boyfriends &/or significant others who absorb their contributions as natural extensions of themselves, rather than acknowledging them at very least, as addendums given to them as gifts by another person other than themselves), along with the problem of not receiving sufficient support from their fathers for their innate talent, on the basis of being a girl. I really appreciated the fact that the entire problem of gender was shown throughout this film in a genteel and non-bombastic way, by comparisons and conversations void of overtly angry emotions - which, and we so easily tend to forget this fact - were within the context of the society(ies) shown in this particular time & place, INDULGENCES which really & truly only the most powerful (e.g. the Dauphin), could afford to show, far less, vent; we forget, the era of all-out Self-Expression in the West really only arose post-war across all classes & societies. This was not Italy, after all, nor America or Britain in the '60s or '70s+, but chiefly the priories and courts of France, a couple of decades BEFORE the revolution; best behaviour between family members so close-knit as the Mozarts, who for so many years shared such close quarters as coach carriages and bedrooms in the houses of hosts, was likely the norm; feelings festered under the surface because it wasn't safe to fully express them, and then they were complicated - painfully - by deep feelings of love, appreciation, and humility fostered by the awareness of how much humiliation the average person had to put up with during the course of their lives, just to survive; the waiting on a prince for 3 whole weeks while he indulged in excesses they could never afford, wasting this talented family's time, which they would have had to 'swallow' without a whimper, was a very good example. We in our (relative) freedom forget how self-expression is a part of being free - which most people were not. No matter how talented - which evidently, Leopold, Nannerl & little Wolfgang ALL were, back then, talent was the ticket but not the money-maker, per se & women never owned any money anyway, no matter what work they did, nor even who they married. So they were the subjects of men, which feminist point is pointed out succinctly yet never with a big banging of any drums! The fact that Mrs. Mozart adored her talented, forceful and resourceful husband, was a bonus - and later in life, a model unconsciously copied by her famous surviving (remember, these were her only two children who lived, so death was an ever-present reminder to boot in the lives of these people and indeed most of the populace back then) son, but was not necessarily guaranteed in every marriage. The touching small scene of the ill-fated fifteen year old future Marie Antoinette already doting on pleasing her deeply troubled young widowed husband, speaks volumes to this - she was a woman of her time, determined to make the most of her lot in life, ergo, to become a good and dutiful wife something which Nannerl simply cannot strive to do till the advanced (back then) age of 32 - and when we watch this movie in it's entirety, even setting aside the imagined/fictitious aspects of her story - we know, why.