This time last year, hundreds of Brisbane musicians were wading through murky musical waters in front of a documentary crew for a performance of a “cursed” symphony. This November, they finally get to see themselves on the big screen when The Curse of the Gothic Symphony comes to the Brisbane International Film Festival. Sniggering allowed!
A flock of fruit bats are making evil, conniving squeals outside my window. It’s the perfect soundtrack to what I’m about to write: a blog of a black magic, symphonic, nature. Mwahaha.
My previous contribution to Limelight was written days before the start of the Melbourne International Film Festival. The festival was about to host the world premiere of the documentary The Curse of the Gothic Symphony. Seven years in the making, it followed a team of obsessive event producers and hundreds of nerdy classical musicians as they set out to achieve a near-impossible task. They were trying to stage a performance of Havergal Brian’s allegedly cursed Gothic Symphony – a work so complex, so obscure, so sonically ghastly that no-one on the planet had touched it for 30 years. And, they were trying to stage it in Brisbane. Why not just try to build an opera house out of soggy spaghetti?
As was admitted in my previous blog, I too was one those musicians – a soprano with clearly no regard for her mental stability – and thrilled to “break the curse” in the Queensland Performing Arts Centre last December. But my purpose now is to inform fellow Brisneylanders that the Brisbane International Film Festival will hold the Queensland premiere this month. At last, you can see yourselves onscreen and snigger!
This will be my third viewing, having seen it twice already in Melbourne. (It may even go on to beat Twilight as my most-watched film in a cinema.) I was fortunate enough to attend the premiere at MIFF, and while there were no red carpets or paparazzi, you’ll be impressed to know that Geoffrey Rush DID come to the after-party. Well, he was at the same bar. Facts. Whatever.
As for the film – I loved it! Whimsical, funny, moving. No Robert Pattinson or sweeping shots of vampire-strewn forests, but there is astounding time-lapse photography of Brisbane’s stormy skyline. Combined with the Gothic score, it’s chilling to watch. It’s pretty special to relive a moment of your life from such a different angle.
I’m biased of course, because there are some millisecond-long shots of me in this film, in the distance. But the central figure is my boss, Gary Thorpe. He’s like a less-emotive mustached version of Mrs Carey from Mrs Carey’s Concert. It’d been Gary’s dream for 28 years to stage this symphony and we see five years of his struggle – with a small budget and a subdued manner – to champion a musical army. At one point, the team he assembled even holds a pitching meeting without him. Choirmaster Alison Rogers puts it bluntly. “We can’t have our Executive Producer putting doubt in people’s minds”. Ouch.
Where Gary is shown to be the master of the understated, Gothic conductor John Curro makes for a perfect contrasting character. He’s the epitome of a gruff, grumpy old man and is hilariously melodramatic. I say “hilarious” now, but at the time I was so offended by his grouchiness at one particular rehearsal that I whinged like a twelve-year-old who’d been given lines by her teacher. (“He’s like, SO mean”). His kids clearly know him better. In one heartwarming scene, John’s violinist daughter Sarah Curro mocks her dad’s cynicism to the cameras, bringing him right down to earth as only a daughter can. Even in the cinema, I was sitting in the same row as one of John’s sons who was in fits of laughter at his father’s antics. I don’t know which was funnier; watching Curro Senior onscreen, or watching Curro Junior’s reactions.
Interspersed with the current day, quirky observational footage are fantastical, stylised recreations of Brian’s life. Most notably, his maddening years in the 1920s when he composed the Gothic like a man possessed. Director Randall Wood has creatively used CGI (or whatever the hip geeky term is) to heighten these moments of history. In fact one of my favourite scenes wasn’t even a scene, but the title sequence – blasting out the symphony’s Star Wars-like musical passages with hurtling CGI shots of storms and gargoyles. (Dear toy companies: would you please manufacture a Gothic Symphony action figurine?)
But the most surprising element is the interviews with Brian’s daughter Olga. She reveals for the first time her brutally honest opinions of her father and his music. (Hint: they’re not favourable). Randall flew to Scotland to speak with Olga and captured some breathtakingly exquisite shots of her snow-covered house, circled by twittering robins. These scenes make for cinematic heaven when combined with the soft choral parts of Brian’s score. (On a side note, most of the soundtrack actually uses the recording of the Brisbane performance. Onya Brisbane!)
The reviews so far have been flattering, with Melbourne’s The Age calling it a “fun, feisty portrait of artistic eccentricity”. It also described the characters as being “frighteningly dedicated fans”! (The “frighteningly dedicated” Gary Thorpe chuckled over this description. He’s threatening to include it grant applications).
So, to the Gothic musicians in Brisbane, I hope you’ll be able to come to one of the screenings. It’ll be a well-deserved cherry-on-top for your marvelous musical efforts! And if you can’t make it, keep your eyes peeled as the documentary is rumoured to screen on the ABC early next year.
Finally, to the viewer who told the film’s producer he thought this was a mockumentary – that the protagonists were comic actors – I can assure you they’re not. These classical music fans are for real. Even if they do seem frighteningly dedicated.
If you don’t believe me, ask a Curro.
The Curse of the Gothic Symphony screens at BIFF, Friday 4 November 6pm in the State Library of Queensland (part of a double-bill event called “Classical Notes”), and Saturday 12 November 2pm at the Palace Barracks Cinema 1.
