Product: Elvira Madigan [VHS]
Rating: 5.0
The Masterpiece Of Romantic Foreign Film Tragedy
1967: This Danish film became an instant classic when it was released. The stunning film is best known for its beautiful cinematography, its classical music score and its simple but elegant tragic plot. It starred Pia Degermark, a blonde, blue-eyed willowy beauty who portrayed a late 19th century tight-rope walker, who abandoned her career in the circus to elope with her lover, an army officer. The love story is very simple, quite tragic, and full of sentimentality and melodrama that seems out of place in the 60's, but nostalgically recollects the milieu of the late 19th century.The classical music score for the film included Mozart's piano concerto number 21, whose second movement is played almost ad nauseum in the film. It is a romantic, tender piece, expressive of a romance like that of the two lovers in this film. They share picnics in the outdoors, they make love al fresco, they seem to be inseperable. Mozart' piano concerto number 21 "andante" has in fact earned the concerto title of the "Elvira Madigan" concerto because of the success of this film. Other classical pieces include Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Chopin piano music and a JohannStrauss waltz.Supposedly based on a true story, the lovers find that their union is illicit, and for political reasons, enemies of theirs want for them to part. The ending, in true tragic tradition, results in the suicide of the two lovers. Nonetheless, the haunting visuals, the beautiful music and everything abou this art-house legend makes Elvira Madigan truly worth getting on DVD.