Shadows on the Wall | The Yellow Tie

The Yellow Tie

dir Serge Ioan Celebidachi
scr Serge Ioan Celebidachi, James Olivier
prd Adela Vrinceanu Celebidachi, Andrei Boncea, James Olivier
with Ben Schnetzer, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson, Kate Phillips, Sean Bean, Charlie Rowe, Tamzin Merchant, Olivia Popica, Anton Lesser, Ewan Horrocks, Andrei Isarescu, Robert Dolle, Edward Hogg
release Rom 14.Nov.25,
UK 9.Oct.26
25/Romania 2h25

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Tracing the life of Romanian composer-conductor Sergiu Celibidache, this film casts four actors to play the role from childhood into his late life. Spanning eight decades, the film has an ambitious scale. It's also directed and cowritten by his son Serge Ioan Celebidachi, which explains the pristine production design, over-serious tone and extended running time. That said, the story is beautifully shot and acted, and hugely involving.

Son of strict war hero Demostene (Bean), the distracted young Sergiu (Isarescu then Horrocks) is fascinated by music, feeling it in his bones. But his father wants him to be a politician. As a young man, Sergiu (now Schnetzer) chooses to write music instead, and his father throws him out. In Bucharest, he meets girls playing piano in a bar, then travels to Berlin in 1936 to study composing. After the war, Sergiu rises to stardom conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, then travels the world. He also meets his wife Ioana (Phillips then Richardson), a painter.

After opening in 1989 Philadelphia as Sergiu (now Malkovich) conducts an orchestra, he's still ranting about it three years later because someone tried to secretly record the concert. Sergiu believes music must only be heard live. The narrative jumps around in time, as Sergiu and Ioana's son Miki (Rowe) shoots a documentary about him, trying to break through the maestro's serene surface. We see various sides of this, including several diva-like tantrums. And the film is punctuated by glorious musical sequences.

Bringing an innate curiosity and engaging connections, Schnetzer has terrific presence as Sergiu goes through his most momentous years, leaving his family, finding his voice and surviving the horrors of war. Malkovich offers a likeable tetchiness as the older Sergiu living in France, where he teaches conducting and continues to resist recording his music. The supporting cast is packed with first-rate actors who add superb textures to the film. Lesser is particularly memorable as Sergiu's mentor Martin Steinke.

While the fluid filmmaking makes the most of the lush locations and period touches, the underwritten script only occasionally cracks the characters' surfaces. Even the title metaphor, a politician's tie given to him by his father, is rather simplistic. Far more than the daddy issues, the political and family issues give Sergiu's story an urgent backdrop that resonates strongly. Intriguingly, even as the film celebrates Sergiu, it admits that his perfectionism and refusal to compromise about recordings have jeopardised his legacy. This film should help preserve it.

themes, language, violence 16.Jul.26

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