Earlier this afternoon, I went to Film Forum to see The Silence Before Bach. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, besides knowing the subject of the film and that it fell on the non-narrative side of things. (As Daphne pointed out on the way outside, it’s interesting that this week finds it occupying the same theater as I’m Not There — one more and they could score the non-narrative musical meditation trifecta.) The first experimental feature I ever saw was Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil, and while my sleep-deprived 18-year-old mind may have made it out to be a more disconcerting experience than it actually was, a part of me still expects non-narrative films to be deeply strange and unsettling. And this wasn’t, really; a few characters (including Bach*) recur throughout the film , interspersed with performances and self-contained sequences.

Worth reading on the film: reviews from Manohla Dargis, Cullen Gallagher, and J. Hoberman, and a Jonathan Rosenbaum essay on director Pere Portabella.

What struck me about the film in particular was how Portabella configured things: often, there would be a long interval before the central moment of any given scene. Unsurprisingly, sound is key here, and at times the sound, even of the ambient variety, seems more central than the image. Throughout, a subtle case is made both for the roots of Bach’s music in the sounds of life and for that music’s continued presence in daily life, whether actively or otherwise.

*-there’s a nice wink to biopic conventions in one of the sequences in which Bach appears as a character. (”That’s the new cantor.” “I hope he’s good!”)