O somma luce

"O how all speech is feeble and falls short"--especially so when faced with Straub's latest, derived from The Divine Comedy, specifically the epic poem's concluding canto. The recipe: take Dante's instinctive acceptance of God's love. Stir in a few bars of Varese; slightly unreal sunlight-flooded landscapes (HD can do that); a chair sitting beside a plow; and a man (Giorgio Passerone) reciting Dante's lines with curious fury. What do you get? A sense of grace, of paradise glimpsed. (Olaf Moller)