| MUSIC OF THE SPHERES : Sheila Seacroft on 'Werckmeister Harmonies' |
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Harmony is the key to this film - the central character Janos believes in the benevolence of the universe through harmony and balance - the old notion of the music of the spheres, but allied in his case to the Age of Reason's knowledge of astronomy and pursuit of understanding the cosmos as a rational place where everything can be explained and nothing needs to be feared once you understand it. In the scene at the beginning of the film in the town inn, amidst superstitious and fearful talk amongst the locals about the eclipse of the sun, he explains that it does have a rational explanation - the darkness is not to be feared, it won't last, light will always come back, in fact it's always there, just hidden. The little 'dance' he organises them into walking through is meant to show this, and thereby demonstrate the harmony of the universe to them,and show them to be themselves a part of that harmony. For Janos every creature is in harmony, the world is a wonderful place, and if you can just understand that, superstition and fear can be explained away. Janos is essentially a spiritual figure who believes all is for the best, his comprehension of the laws of nature meshing for him with an almost medieval world view of a benevolent prime mover. Meanwhile his uncle, a musician, is also searching for truth, but he is trying to find it by undoing harmonies created and sustained by western culture, in the form of the 17th century German musician, Andreas Werckmeister, who conceived the idea of 'equal temperament' which enabled music to be written and played in any key, producing the particular harmonies on which most western music is based. But the musician is seeking to go back to the 'truer' music from before Bach and the age of Reason, truer but more discordant. Seeking truth and authenticity isn't always a good thing. Beauty isn't necessarily truth. The beautiful things of European culture exemplified in music are really based on a slight tweaking of reality. When news comes that a whale is to be displayed in the town market place, Janos welcomes it as an example of the wonder of God's creation, the splendour of existence, another proof that the world is a wonderful place, another aspect of the order of the universe. Unfortunately he's wrong. The figure known only as The Prince who is in charge of the creature can be seen as either the Prince of Darkness [theological] or Macchiavelli' s Il Principe [political], or both, and however magnificent the whale has been [which we do get a sense of], it is smelly, decaying, corrupted, just a commercial object now, being used by evil people. If the whale does represent the wonder of the world, then we must see this as showing that the world is now rotting, in the grip of evil, not good. Just as Janos and the musician together form an alliance of spirituality and rationality, the Prince has his ally in Hanna Schygulla's Tunde Eszter who dances to a different tune, military marches, and seeks actual political power. Typically the two evils use each other to corrupt the citizens, and by the second night they are no longer dancing to the music of spheres, but have become a chaotically evil force. This is underlined by the anarchic children wreaking destruction, clanging instruments, literally destroying harmony. The attack on the hospital is unreason, chaos, a reversal of normality - the beautiful glittery street of the previous night is now filled with terrifying mindlessness. The gentle and organic circles of dance have become the unnatural, straight, militaristic lines in which people march forward in hate, bent on destruction, humanism has been taken over by fascism. This is the new world which Janos cannot escape from, because it is the world as it is lived with no 'other' place to flee to. His notion of balance and benign control has fallen apart, and he is destroyed. It looks as if the light which at the beginning of the film he believed was always there has gone for good. Finally the musician views the devastated whale/world as it really is, that is the truth at the end of the film, his search is over, and he now sees with horror the true nature of the 'harmony' he has been trying to rediscover. The film should not particularly be seen as being set in Hungary, it's any time, anywhere, though contemporary resonance is certainly there- it is a highly political film in that it deals with questions of power, control, and the ease with which social cohesion can be broken. We are not necessarily on the plains of Central Europe but the 'darkling plain' of the world... The world, which seems So various, so beautiful, so new Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain But we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight Where ignorant armies clash by night. Matthew Arnold : Dover Beach
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