Il était une fois Jean-Sébastien Bach

(By advance, please excuse my bad and too scholastic English) This movie is a perfect example of all that one should not make. The picture is bad: no movement, no perspective. The photograph is bad: runny colours, grainy film. Actor & actress are without expression, without dynamic. NOTA: the superb hairstyle with streak hairs of Anna Magdalena (Like a bimbo girl in `Macumba Club' night dancing in far end of country side during the annual cattle market). Even the music is bad, not in respect with J.S.Bach. Comments with a voice out off picture is monotonous and encourage you to sleep. Dialogs are almost nonexistent and without interest. I don't know if the life of J.S.Bach is very thrilling (according this movie it seems that J.S.B. was a kind of civil servant attached to princes for write one cantata each week !), but his music is in domain of spirituality and it is perfectly concealed/ignored in this movie. Fortunately I suppose that the US audience shall has never the opportunity to see this very bad movie.

I have little knowledge about Johan Sebastian Bach, but I liked this movie anyways. Maybe it was because I wasn't critical? The costumes were nice and I liked the actors. It was interesting that he was such a humble man. And that he loved both his wifes. I also liked that he seemed like a good father. I think his brother was a little arrogant. I wonder what kind of music Bach would have listened to had he been transported with a time machine to our time? I wish there were movies about other famous people like this. I am happy I am not living in the 17th century, because I think it would be nasty to be operated on by a quack doctor.

When I went to see this film, I didn't thought I was going to see a masterpiece, I expected to see a documentary on JS. Bach. Well, I must say I got it.

I found the actors rather bad (except for a few exceptions), Jean Rochefort (whom I do like) is not as convincing as expected, the quality of the image is rather poor (well, do bear in mind it's a small French film), there's nothing special in the filming itself, and if you don't love music you'll get bored very quickly because of long "concert" scenes. Things have been done rather quickly and even though the costumes are good, all efforts to make the spectator move to the XVIIIth century have not been made, we can even see some cars in the background of a scene!

The worst point of this film is music/image synchronization. It's really obvious that actors are not playing the music (except in one or two scenes). Well, I'm a pianist myself so maybe as a non musician you won't notice anything. But when Bach conducts the orchestra and his beating with his arms is not synchronized with the music, I guess even non musicians could get annoyed.

You can't compare this film to others on the same theme (musicians' biographies) such as "Amadeus" or "Immortal Beloved" (that's on Beethoven), those are films while this one is a documentary. After all, if you're interested in Bach's life and too lazy to read a book about it, then you could go and see it.

What we have is a docudrama about Bach in French with narration in English, and English subtitles. I found the film to be interesting enough and depicts Bach's world rather well. I really felt transported back to the 18th century. The film sticks to the facts like a good documentary would. No Hollywood crap in this story, which may be why people disliked it, they perhaps want a big budget Hollywood drama about Bach, not a docudrama style of film. Maybe the fact its foreign throws people off? I don't know, I watch so many foreign films they seem normal to me.

There's so much of Bach's music in this film its great. How any Bach fan could not appreciate this film is beyond me, and the acting is fine. I equate bad films with being something I can picture on MST3K, this isn't even close to the same ballpark as those types of films. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but if your a true Bach fan don't let these bad reviews steer you away from this film. Ultimately I rank films by the fact of would i ever want watch it again? And in the case of this film I would.

It does come off, as another reviewer noted, like a high school documentary film. The narration is a bit stultifying. If you want to learn about JS Bach's life, though, you will by watching this movie. The actors do the best they can, but the format could have been better--the narrator/scene/narrator/scene exposition gets a bit plodding after a while.

Costumes? Superb. Sets? Wonderful. With the exception of one actress whose makeup looks like she went to Lancome to get her face painted, and to Sassoon for her hair to be styled, the rest of the group look half-way believable.

There's enough of JS Bach's music peppered throughout the film that you'll get a nice helping of it, so that's a plus, too.

What's unfortunate, though, is that they clearly didn't spare the horses in terms of expense when it came to visual and auditory details...it's just a shame that the exposition of the story was so, well, lame.

Bottom line: Like Bach? Your time won't be wasted watching this film. If you're not madly in love with the guy and his music, though, this might not give you the "period drama" fix you seek.