{"id":374797,"date":"2025-08-26T11:25:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T11:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/374797\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T11:25:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T11:25:10","slug":"measures-for-a-funeral-review-virtuosic-classical-music-drama-is-like-a-tar-companion-piece-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/374797\/","title":{"rendered":"Measures for a Funeral review \u2013 virtuosic classical music drama is like a T\u00e1r companion piece | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

This high-minded, dense and in many ways impressive drama about classical music from Canadian director Sofia Bohdanowicz could serve as an introspective companion piece to T\u00e1r<\/a>. Where Todd Fields\u2019 film was concerned with artists out in the world and modern cancel culture, here the focus is unswervingly on art itself: its inner sustaining emotional function for the artist and, more widely, for all of us.<\/p>\n

Deragh Campbell stars as academic researcher Audrey Benac, a character she has played before for Bohdanowicz, including in Veslem\u00f8y\u2019s Song<\/a>, the 2018 short from which Measures for a Funeral has been expanded. This time Audrey is on the trail of Kathleen Parlow, a virtuosic real-life 20th-century violinist who, in this film, tutored her grandfather. Music weighs heavily on the Benac family; as Audrey rifles through university archives, she receives guilt-ridden calls from her dying mother, a failed musician who holds her responsible for her stalled career. Carrying her grandfather\u2019s instrument like some form of penance, this timorous student seems to be seeking redemption through her interest in Parlow, a maverick who refused marriage in order to dedicate herself to her art.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

From a textured Peter Greenaway-esque opening that intercuts a classical score being scanned, an orchestra tuning up, the Montreal skyline and Audrey on the phone to her mum, Bohdanowicz often displays something close to virtuosic technique herself. As Audrey shadows Parlow in London and Oslo, an ever-present undertone of unease threatens to bloom into full-blown horror. When she meets Elise (real-life prodigy Maria Due\u00f1as), a hurricane of a violinist who melds with Parlow in her fantasies, it feels like we\u2019re stepping into an Alfred Hitchcock dream.<\/p>\n

However, the elliptical style and stilted dialogue, with Audrey\u2019s conversations often sounding like academic commentary, make the film hard to love. Adrift between Parlow\u2019s reminiscences and her researcher\u2019s travels and sullen reveries, it feels like a speculative symphony trying to recreate its own score.<\/p>\n

But the uncertainty and inhibition are perhaps the point. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be a masterpiece. It\u2019s possible it\u2019s intentionally fragmentary. A lack of precision can be a conscious strategy,\u201d says Audrey, defending a lost opus Parlow once performed and that she now wants to put on stage. This feels like Bohdanowicz justifying her own approach \u2013 and by extension the fumbling accommodation with life that all artists, and maybe all human beings, must practise. Fully committed to a radical irresolution, this simultaneously alienating and beautiful film bears repeat viewing.<\/p>\n

Measures for a Funeral is at the ICA, London, from 22 August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This high-minded, dense and in many ways impressive drama about classical music from Canadian director Sofia Bohdanowicz could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-374797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115094823055021520","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}