CFF screening - short review - NOCTURNE by Tony Palmer

Throughout his illustrious career, Tony Palmer has shown a great understanding of music and the musical process in its wider sense. His latest film Nocturne takes a look at the life of one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century, Benjamin Britten, in honour of his hundredth birthday.

Having worked with Britten before, Palmer has clearly formed his idea of the composer’s personality, and what this film stands as is an analysis of any element – domestic, historical, sexual and political – that influenced his masterworks as well as a harrowing examination of his personality. In fact, there is literally nothing missing from this film, whether it is unique artistic representation of his work’s inspiration by juxtaposition of images of the holocaust and Iraq bombings over a performance of his renowned War Requiem, a detailed description of his music’s disciplined ethics by experts and critics and interviews with people who were closest to him.

As well as that, it makes use of great archive material from films that show the man at work or his operas staged for television, some of it shot by Palmer himself. However, there is more. The film’s unhurried pace allows its audience to truly identify with the film and the music with its unhurried pace that urges a kind of meditative interaction.

Nocturne, therefore, is an astounding piece of documentary filmmaking that is at once structured and experimental. It is at once biographical and poetic. A truly magnificent experience, and a glorious find by the Cork Film Festival for this year’s edition.