SYMPHONY OF A LIFE // A FILM REVIEW OF "LOUIS VAN BEETHOVEN"
The life of Ludwig Van Beethoven (here called, both in title and in film, "Louis" as his everyday nickname) was an extraordinary one, one that created some of the most admired music in the world. He is known for his gorgeous repertoire of classical music and even the most casual fan knows he was practically deaf during the last years of his life. 250 years after his birth, Niki Stein's new German television film LOUIS VAN BEETHOVEN attempts to tell his entire life story in under two hours, a Herculean feat indeed. At times it's inspired and gorgeously shot, and is clearly inspired to thrill the audience as Amadeus (the blueprint of a near perfect musician biography) did so many years ago. Sadly, even with some inspired sequences, great acting and gorgeously shot, it falls short.
The film tells Beethoven's tale throughout three sequences of his life and tells them concurrently: his middle-aged final years (played by Tobias Moretti), his days as a youth prodigy (Colin Pütz) and as a young man (Anselm Bresgott, giving the most layered and interesting take of the three). He and his nephew Karl (Peter Lewys Preston), recovering from a failed suicide attempt, are at his younger brothers estate when he receives a letter from an old flame. This triggers the flashback sequences of his life, telling his story from an acclaimed youth pianist to the final year of his life. As a boy, he lived under the hard thumb of his alcoholic father (Ronald Kukulies), supportive of his talent but much more fond of the drink.
As a young man, we see him falls for an heiress far above his class, Eleonore von Breuning (Caroline Hellwig), as well as travelling to Vienna to study with Mozart (Manuel Rubey). Here, he constantly fights convention and class, while as an older man he has grown angry and bitter. In his middle-aged years, he's almost completely deaf, working often from a pad of paper where people write messages to him. The film goes back and forth between the time frames, categorizing his life out of order and the cast lands nearly every beat. The three actors playing Beethoven (Bresgott, Moretti, Pütz) are all very good, though I do wish the oldest version of "Louis," played by Tobias Moretti, had more to do than simply be unhappy with everything around him. There's hints of other levels, but the movie keeps them at bay. Simply put, it's too short and just too flat to every be truly dynamic. From the slow pace to the exclusion of many things throughout Beethoven's life, the film feels like part of a longer mini-series, not a 2-hour feature film. In fact the final moments of the film are so absurdly rushed, it feels like they ran out of film (it quite abruptly ends) and simply decided to tell the rest through captions on the screen. LOUIS VAN BEETHOVEN is an enjoyable film that always seems like it should be better. A frustrating result coming from not diving deep enough in the rich source material.
GRADE: B-
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Niki Stein STARRING Anselm Bresgott, Tobias Moretti, Colin Pütz, Ulrich Noethen, Ronald Kukulies, Caroline Hellwig, Peter Lewys Preston, Silke Bodenbender, Cornelius Obonya, Johanna Gastdorf, Sabin Tambrea, Manuel Rubey, Eleonore von Breuning. OPENING DECEMBER 16th ON DIGITAL CINEMAS VIA FILM MOVEMENT. FOR MORE INFORMATION: https://www.filmmovement.com/louis-van-beethoven