It’s been a charmed career so far for Hayley Westenra. At the age of 16, her crossover album Pure became the fastest selling album in the history of the classical charts, fuelled by Westenra’s blend of choirgirl voice and angelic looks. That was 2003, this is now, and the 23-year-old Westenra, after a stint with crossover hotties Celtic Woman, has scored an astonishing coup in getting Ennio Morricone to provide new bespoke arrangements for an album of his songs. The classic theme from The Mission has been given lyrics for the first time (penned by Westenra), reemerging as Whispers in a Dream alongside tracks freshly squeezed from Cinema Paradiso, Once Upon a Time in the West etc. All these arrangements are conducted by Morricone with his 120-piece orchestra, the Sinfonietta di Roma –  no synthesized strings here. Westenra’s voice has retained all its fabled choirgirl purity; and although it’s far from smooth across its range, she is always pitch-perfect, which is all you need for melodies that basically sell themselves. The final result is as schmaltzy as all get-out, but Westenra deserves plaudits for pushing the boundaries of the crossover canon beyond Danny Boy and You Raise Me Up.

Whittled down from its original form as a miniseries, The Trip has been trimmed of its foodie flavour in favour of a focus on Coogan’s midlife crisis.

Wim Wenders has approached the new medium as a chance to rethink cinema’s possibilities.

Languid, reverent shots of nature shimmering at magic hour – Terrence Malick is back.

This fanciful biopic casts light on Mozart’s older sister Maria Anna “Nannerl”, a fine singer and instrumentalist in her own right whose ambitions naturally took a backseat to the boy wonder’s prodigious gifts. Based in part on the correspondence of their demanding father Leopold Mozart, the account is a quintessentially French one set in the 1760s when the children are aged 10 and 15, following the imagined events that unfold during performing tours to Paris and Versailles. Nannerl’s journey centres on two fictionalised encounters with French royalty. The first, with the cloistered, illegitimate 12-year-old daughter of Louis XV, echoes the tragedy of her own thwarted potential. As Louise de France, Lisa Féret is blandly benign and monochrome, making it difficult to care about the rapport between the two young girls, who are in fact real-life sisters. Meanwhile, the teenage Nannerl’s sexual awakening becomes a focus with the help of the brooding Dauphin’s smouldering gaze (Clovis Fouin). The attraction is inextricably linked with his intense admiration of her music, freeing her creative spirit – temporarily, at least. She is forced to dress as a boy in order to consort with the prince in public, but this narrative tool, again designed to…

At first glance this disc of chamber music might appeal exclusively to film music buffs.

It’s easy to see why Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty was invited into the Cannes film festival’s prestigious official competition.

A compassionate and deeply moving account of a controversial period in British and Australian history.

The Chinese filmmaker talks about his love of Peking opera and why he has directed Turandot. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Priscilla Queen of the Desert and The Book of Mormon win big. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

At the Movies co-hosts choose their favourite film scores... Will they agree at last?

Depardieu and Kingsley rumoured to star in rival flicks about the Baroque composer. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in