The Silence Is Baroque (1997)

Overview

The rough voices of men (from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Accatone ) open the film soundtrack, they banter in Italian about taking flowers to the cemetery. Filmed in Granada and Seville during Holy Week. The soundtrack mixes a cacophony of the music of the marching bands recorded live on location, the ambience of the crowds and the sung laments. The centre piece is The Silence, a totemic hyper realist effigy from the 17th century which processes at midnight in total silence along the streets where the lighting has been turned off. After it passes, we cross over into the light and noise of a new day – where people throng the streets, sit in cafes and enjoy life. Popular devotion is expressed in death intertwined with the applause for life in the energy of the Baroque.