Search

Love's Debris

1996, Movie, NR, 122 mins

Love's Debris: Review

LOVE'S DEBRIS | POUSSIERES D'AMOUR
starstarstarstar
Ecstasy awaits serious opera fans in this beautifully photographed, loosely structured documentary about opera singers. The material is rich, and the question around which it's structured -- how do singers evoke a world of intense and complex emotions through their voices? -- is one that could easily engage a wide range of viewers. Director Werner Schroeter's casual interviews with a series of European singers are often moving, especially when he speaks to three older divas who helped inspire his own love of opera -- Italian Anita Cerquetti, German Martha Modl and Belgian Rita Gorr -- about the ways singing shaped their lives, and how their lives seeped into their voices. So it's a pity that Schroeter seems determined to shut out the less knowledgeable among us. Just a few small adjustments would make the film so much more accessible: Identifying the singers onscreen, for example, and subtitling the arias they perform against the sumptuous backdrop of a 13th-century abbey. How does what they're singing relate to what they've just said about love or betrayal or ambition or self-image, if at all? Sure, the music itself is supposed to carry a powerful emotional punch, but if words didn't count there wouldn't be any. And the random images with which Schroeter punctuates the interviews and arias -- handsome, naked youths riding horses or rolling in front of churches in oversized wheels, for example -- add only a grating touch of pretentious Eurotrashiness. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
Advertisement

Advertisement

Most Popular TV Shows

  1. NCIS
  2. Dancing with the Stars
  3. The Game
  4. Biggest Loser
  5. American Idol
more popular tv shows

Most Popular Celebrities

  1. Morgan Freeman
  2. Tiger Woods
  3. Drew Barrymore
  4. Jake Gyllenhaal
  5. Robert De Niro
more popular celebrities

Most Popular Movies

  1. The Twilight Saga: New Moon
  2. The Blind Side
  3. 2012
  4. Old Dogs
  5. A Christmas Carol
more popular movies

Top Videos

  1. Victorias Secret
  2. Glee
  3. Biggest Loser
  4. Desperate Housewives
  5. NCIS
more top videos