Il était une fois Jean-Sébastien Bach

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.

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.

It's so easy to criticize a movie to its bone marrow, especially this one. Everything was wrong with it, the costumes, the historic details, the Francofication, the acting, the costumes, the absence of God in his life, the musical performances. But.. I have to say, I did finish watching the movie, while I usually am very quick hitting the stop button. Behind all the frivolous nonsense I saw a movie made by people who were madly in love with this man and his music. That's why they retraced his steps literally, because they were on a pilgrimage with a camera. It reminded me of The Mill and The Cross, which is about a painting of Pieter Breugel the Elder by that title. Although the historic depiction in this movie seems to be more accurate, that is not the point of the movie. The point is to literally enter the aforementioned painting. You can't 'enter' music like you can enter a painting, but, what these film makers seemed to be doing was to go to places where Bach was breathing hoping to inhale a few of the molecules Bach once exhaled. To me it felt that they were using the actors as a vehicle to get closer to their idol. It worked for me. Again, as a movie it wouldn't get a passing grade at any film school, but, as a means of transferring passion, it worked phenomenal, after wards I listened to Bach's music for many hours and I can't wait until Easter when the St Matthew's Passion will be performed.

To my mind the music of Johann Sebastian Bach is far from a pretty, bucolic romp in the woods; but that's pretty much what we have here. The leads are mostly miscast, gorgeously coiffed, French lookers who display little affinity for the depth or complexity of the composer's work (we never even see Anna Magdalena, Bach's second wife and accomplished musician in her own right, play the clavier - though we do see plenty of cleavage). The narrator provides all the necessary biographical information, interpretation and commentary on Bach's life and career. The rest is an insipid but pretty melodrama accompanied by the splendid of music of Herr Bach. If that's all you require, enjoy!

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.