Trip to Asia

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Movie
Original title Trip to Asia - The search for harmony
Country of production Germany
China
South Korea
Taiwan
Japan
original language English
German
Spanish
Mandarin
Publishing year 2008
length 108 minutes
Age rating FSK 0
JMK 0
Rod
Director Thomas Pit
production Uwe Dierks
Thomas Grube
Andrea Thilo
(Boomtown Media, Berlin)
music Simon Stockhausen
camera Anthony Dod Mantle
Alberto Venzago
René Dame
cut Martin Hoffmann

Trip to Asia - The Search for Harmony is a German documentary from 2008 by Thomas Grube about a concert tour of the Berliner Philharmoniker . It started on February 28, 2008 in German cinemas in the distribution of Piffl Medien .

action

Trip to Asia shows insights into the inner workings of the Berlin Philharmonic, which is considered to be one of the best orchestras in the world. The filmmakers accompanied the orchestra on its 2005 tour of Asia through the cities of Beijing , Seoul , Shanghai , Hong Kong , Taipei and Tokyo .

The film describes everyday life in the orchestra during this trip. Thomas Grube concentrates on the individual musicians in the orchestra and shows their background, feelings, fears and motivation in very personal interviews. As a spectator, for example, one learns that even musicians are still struggling with stage fright shortly before retirement or that many orchestra members were outsiders in their youth. The film also illuminates the processes in the orchestra itself and shows, among other things. a. the pressure young musicians are exposed to who have yet to survive their two-year probationary period or the relationship between the orchestra and its chief conductor Sir Simon Rattle . A central question of the film is also the conflict between the individual wishes of the individual musicians and the demands of the community.

The tour and the cities visited are always the trigger and projection surface for the topics dealt with in the interviews. The director refrains from presenting the individual cities and countries in detail and concentrates on the orchestra musicians themselves.

The climax of the film comes after the concert in Taipei , when over 30,000 spectators, who watched the concert in the rain in front of big screens, cheer the musicians.

The music

Ein Heldenleben , the great tone poem by Richard Strauss , is the central theme of the film . The individual movements of the hero's life can be found again during the concerts in the cities of the journey and always have a direct reference to the respective topic (e.g. the Philharmonic Orchestra Des Helden play Escape from the World and Perfection while the cellist Götz Teutsch explains that you experience the whole on special evenings the rare feeling of being "one with the cosmos").

In addition to Heldenleben , Trip to Asia also features Ludwig van Beethoven's 3rd Symphony ( Eroica ) and the contemporary work Asyla by Thomas Adès , which the Berliner Philharmoniker also played on their Asia tour.

Simon Stockhausen composed the film music, among other things, from original sounds that he himself recorded during the trip. He himself describes his approach as follows:

“ Everything is music, every sound has a pitch and a rhythm that can serve as a framework for a composition. The recording is just as important as the post-production, because microphones are musical instruments that can hear more than the human ear. "

Reviews

" After the success of" Rhythm is it "and" Das Reichsorchester ", the fate of every sequel seemed sealed for the third Berliner Philharmoniker film: fatigue. The opposite has happened. "Trip to Asia", the Berliner Philharmoniker's self-awareness road movie through the Far East, is probably the most passionate (and most detailed) orchestra portrait that has ever existed. The most important German orchestra, which is considered difficult, gives intimate insights into its inner workings. "

- Berliner Morgenpost

“Four cameramen have always been close to the musicians and their star conductor and allow a deep insight into the inner workings of the Berliner Philharmoniker as one has never seen it before. "Trip To Asia" is not just a documentary for classical music fans. The really exciting thing is the approach to this complex and agile orchestral structure, congenially accompanied by a soundtrack composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen's son Simon. "

- Hamburger Abendblatt

Audio description

In addition to the original soundtrack, the DVD also contains an image description that was produced by the German Hörfilm gGmbH. The speaker is Ulrike Sturzbecher. In 2009 the work was nominated for the German Audio Film Award.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Trip to Asia . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2008 (PDF; test number: 112 724 K).
  2. ↑ Age rating for Trip to Asia . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ Simon Stockhausen , on his approach to film music
  4. ↑ Kai Luehrs-Kaiser: “Intimate Insights - The Berlin Philharmonic and their Trip to Asia ”  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Berliner Morgenpost , February 28, 2008@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.morgenpost.de  
  5. ^ "Searching for harmony music documentation:" Trip To Asia "" , Hamburger Abendblatt , February 28, 2008
  6. ↑ Trip to Asia in the Hörfilm database of Hörfilm e. V.
  7. ↑ 7th German Audio Film Award 2009