Nannerl, la soeur de Mozart (2010) - film review

In a rickety carriage, a family of musicians are making their way across a wintry landscape, snuggled together for comfort as they await their arrival at the next palace on their itinerary.  The Mozarts are on tour, performing exclusively before the crowned heads of Europe.  The star of the troupe is 11-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus, a child prodigy who has already composed his first symphony.  His sister Nannerl, three years his senior, is just as talented, but her father does little to encourage her musical ambitions.  At Versailles, disguised as a man, Nannerl makes a deep impression on the dauphin Louis, the son of the present king of France, Louis XV.  The dauphin has no doubts about Nannerl’s genius and encourages her to write music.  But this is not an era that respects the genius of women and Nannerl is destined not to share her brother’s good fortune...

In his most ambitious film to date, auteur director René Féret casts some long-overdue light on one of the greatest tragedies in the history of music, not with the grandeur and posturing that prevails in today’s big budget period dramas, but with the introspection, intimacy and cool detachment that characterises his idiosyncratic approach to filmmaking.  That Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had a sister who was equally as talented as the genius who composed 41 symphonies by the age of 35 will come as a surprise to most people.  How is it that we have never heard of this other child prodigy?   Given the era in which Maria Anna Mozart, nicknamed Nannerl, lived, an era in which the only thing expected of women was to make good wives and even better mothers, it is not hard to see why this musical genius was destined for obscurity, her talents shunned by a society that could not appreciate them and eclipsed by her younger brother’s success.  In his imagined account of the life of Mozart’s older sister, Féret does not have to strain credulity too hard.  Guided by letters and other written accounts of the time, he offers a plausible interpretation of events that is nonetheless moving and rich in character detail.  

Nannerl, la soeur de Mozart is a very different kind of historical drama to the one that modern audiences have come to expect.  Although its production values are on a par with the most lavish of today’s period films, making effective use of real locations such as the Château de Versailles and offering a veritable feast for the eyes with its elaborate costumes and sets, the film is far less concerned with making a visual impression.  The work it most resembles is Roberto Rossellini’s La Prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV (1966), a film that accentuates the ordinariness of life in the past whilst eschewing the kind of wishy-washy romanticism which inevitably makes the past look like a grotesque theme-park of the imagination.   Whilst Féret’s film falls somewhat short of the sustained brilliance of Rossellini’s, its pared-back approach and sublime lack of artifice suit its subject matter admirably and the result is a refreshing alternative to the prevailing trend in costume dramas, which nowadays tend to overlook the human part of the equation.

The slow pace of the film and its lack of stylistic hutzpa ensure that it was never going to be a mainstream success.  There are no big name actors (Féret cast his two daughters, Marie and Lisa Féret, in two of the most important roles, in spite of their obvious lack of experience), no grandiose set-pieces (apart from the beautifully staged concert scenes), none of the usual cinematic pomp and circumstance that has become de rigueur in period dramas.   Rather, Nannerl, la soeur de Mozart has a Bergmanesque minimalism and simplicity to it, and is a film that you either instantly hate or gradually learn to fall in love with.  It is not a masterpiece (the film’s uneven pace and the limited range of some of the actors are blemishes that are hard to overlook), but it is a film that, for all its flaws, manages to engage the emotions in a subtle and profound way.  

To its credit, the film has no difficulty conveying the full tragedy of a life that was cruelly diverted from its natural course in order to conform with the conventions of the day.  If its heroine had had the good fortune to have been born a boy, she would most probably be as famous today as her younger brother (and, as the film points out, it is through her selfless efforts that Wolfgang Amadeus’s music secured its longevity).  Nannerl’s misfortune was to have been a girl and her talent had to be sacrificed so that she could do what society expected of her, which was to serve as a nursemaid for her beloved father and marry a man she could never love.  At least, thanks to René Féret, we are now aware that she existed and we know something of both her personal tragedy and her contribution to the history of music.  If it were not for her, we may never have heard the name Mozart...

© James Travers 2011

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