Oh to Believe in Another World review – William Kentridge’s astonishing animated ballet of dark comic pain
Kentridge’s cine-musical piece, created to complement Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony, is a wonder of puppetry, dance and wit, examining humanity, sorrow and idealism.
The Baku international arts festival in Azerbaijan is presenting an extraordinary cine-musical work, arguably the most striking animation I have encountered. Oh to Believe in Another World is a one-hour collage animation featuring live-action choreography by the 71-year-old South African artist and filmmaker William Kentridge. It is performed alongside a live orchestra playing Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony, an event that both marks the 120th anniversary of Shostakovich’s birth this year and honors his reportedly unfulfilled love (and lifelong friendship) for his student, the Azerbaijani pianist and composer Elmira Nazirova.
The 10th symphony was inspired by Stalin and premiered shortly after his death, suggesting Shostakovich likely worked on it for some time prior, long enough that at least part of the composition was conceived without any awareness of Stalin’s passing. Could some of it have originally been intended as a dutifully dramatic homage to Stalin? Yet the music arguably blends fear, awe, revulsion, and a hysterical response to the frenzied energy of Stalin’s genocidal tyranny, a darkly ambivalent respect for the great dictator whose 1945 victory anchored the postwar order; perhaps the music’s swirling currents also convey the sense that a vast and terrible era has ended, along with a grief for all that was sacrificed to it. Continue reading...
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