# Dotkniecie reki (1992)

### reviewed by
Dennis Schwartz

SILENT TOUCH, THE (director: Krzysztof Zanussi; cast: Aleksander Bardini (Professor Jerzy Kern), Lothaire Bluteau (Stefan), Sofie Gråbøl (Annette Berg), Max von Sydow (Henrik Kesdi), Sarah Miles ( Henrik'sWife), Peter Hesse Overgaard (Joseph), 1992-Poland)

It is hard to imagine how a film about a musical genius, Henrik Kesdi, that has a renown veteran actor (von Sydow) in it, who is quite adept at playing the part called for, of such a curmudgeon and unsociable giant in the annals of musical composition, and the film being so meritoriously scored musically as to give it the proper classical musical atmosphere for the story to take off on, plus it is directed by an innovative and critically acclaimed Polish director, known for his intellectual films that are implicit studies in character (CAMOUFLAGE, CONTRACT, ILLUMINATION), should fall so short in its ability to be a creative film, and is only carried to the level of marginal respectability by the weight of the above named actor and this after a brilliant opening scene that portends to a film that will be interminably beguiling, that is based on an idea for a film that is both original and captivating, just baffles me, as I try to ponder what went wrong and how moribund and cliche-ridden the story came to be.

The film opens with the Polish musicologist student, Stefan (Lothaire Bluteau), tossing in his sleep from a recurring dream in which he hears a few bars of magical music. He goes in the middle of the night with this news to see his music professor Kern (Bardini), who says this sound might be linked with someone he went to school with, the composer Henrik Kesdi, who had a very promising future, but during WW11, his wife was a holocaust victim and as a protest to the cruelty of the world, he has chosen to remain silent ever since. Since Kesdi is living in Denmark, Stefan goes there to see the reclusive composer.

Henrik is seen in his splendid country house as a bitter, crotchety, infirmed 74-year-old, who has remarried a much younger woman, Helena (Miles), who is willing to put up with his manipulative behavior, as he claims that all he wants is to be left alone--- to enjoy my incontinence in private.

Stefan forces his way into the house of the composer, even though he is not welcomed at first, by being able to cure the composer of his backaches by using a divining rod and discovering a stream under his bedroom and telling the composer to switch rooms when he sleeps. Well, this cure might work on film, and who knows, this information might have some medical merit that I am not aware of, but as part of the plot, Stefan as the healer, ingratiating himself with the composer to break his musical silence and give it all for the world of music, started to give me a headache, as it reminded me of all the formula films of this nature that I have sat through in the past, thinking that this easily could have been the theme of a sports film or a multitude of other films, and that the splendid idea that opened the picture was about to be destroyed by contrivance and implausibility. O great muses, where are you when the filmmaker needed you most !

>From here on in, it is all downhill, as you can already guess the glorious ending to the film, of Henrik creating that great score, so what is left, is filling in the details leading up to this grand accomplishment, and for that we can use an attractive young Danish girl, and that will come in the form of a musical secretary, Annette (Gråbøl), who will tease the young musicologist but be passionately attracted to the cunningly considerate and intellectually gifted older maestro, who she will become pregnant with, as Helena will be very undertanding of her husband's needs and they will form a pretty odd menage-a-trois, as Stefan will depart for Poland, having brought goodness into the world in the form of musical genius, but feeling empty inside because his love for Annette is unrequited.

The moral of the story centers around whether you believe one's self-sacrifice for the good of the world is a genuine and necessary one, or that unfilled desires are the height of all deceits. These and other interesting questions could have been delved into, if the plot wasn't so ludicrous, and if the film wasn't so uninspired, as to make it almost unbearable to stomach. Tis a pity !

    REVIEWED ON 5/6/99     GRADE: C-

Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"

    http://www.sover.net/~ozus

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