Moses und Aron

M.U.A could have potentially pushed S/H's avantgarde tendencies into overdrive, but this melding of two unique outre talents is _almost_ strangely accessible. Their intense formalism and concentration on imagery creates strong, largely static, visuals that provide a stunning counterpoint to Schoenberg's notoriously difficult, perpetually shifting compositions. This juxtaposition provides fertile ground to interrogate the complex relationship between form and ideas, images and words.

Including the scoreless third act pushes Schönberg's questioning (is it onto-theology or a deconstruction thereof?) further, so that the work dwells within a possibly unresolvable tension. It's not possible here to elaborate on the nature of those questions or contradictions, but it is clearly also a matter of the origin and fate of the exiled Jews, which by 1923 Schönberg already saw more clearly than many. As for the music itself, its theoretical complexity is beyond my ability to evaluate.

Wrestling with the distinction/inseparability between form and idea, with Aaron representing the former and Moses representing the latter. The film does a good job with its biblical subject, using the form of the film to distance us from that time initially, bringing us closer to something that feels immediate as the film goes forward.