In the winter of 1991/92 I saw a movie in the Utopia in Luxembourg called Tous les matins du monde. In the beginning there is a scene where you see a very slow zoom into Gérard Depardieu's face which lasts for about an eternity in film time, i.e. five minutes or something. And there is this strange calm music playing. French baroque music from the second half of the 17th century by amongst others Sainte-Colombe. Whom Depardieu is actually incarnating in the film. The music is played on the viola da gamba, a kind of missing link between the violin and the guitar, I'd like to think.

This film was about the most boring movie I ever saw in my life. I don't remember any dialogues. There was just this enervating quiet unknown classical music and some images of people moving around in a cottage on the country side, in the forest. I am not sure if the music made me dislike the movie or vice versa. Probably they just complemeneted each other. And I wasn't ripe for them.

A friend of mine who usually likes the music I like gave me this CD by Hille Perl. I listened to it first the day before yesterday on the way to work. It was just before 7 o'clock, I drove into the sun which was rising in between the Frankfurt skyscrapers. The sky was in a light-coloured blue. There were lots of interbreeding vapor trails in it. I had no expectations concerning the music and no idea about it as well. It took me by surprise. So relaxed, so pure, so human. There is an incredible strength in this music I didn't notice the first time. Hille Perl plays the seven string viola da gamba. The seventh string supposedly added by Saint-Colombe. On her page there are two quotes I have to cite, the first one as you can hear it in her play:

The second one for its maybe unintentional humour

Should I see the movie again? I don't think so. Maybe in another twenty years.