Parky at the Pictures (DVD 24/8/2017)

CLASSIC BECKER.

ÉDOUARD ET CAROLINE (1951) - Following Antoine et Antoinette (1947) in drawing on Jacques Becker's own experiences, this Gallic screwball has a sprightly modernity that sets it aside from much postwar French cinema. Daniel Gélin and Anne Vernon are splendidly natural as the couple striving to cope with her family's disapproval of her marrying beneath herself and his struggle to realise his ambitions as a pianist. But, while Gélin prepares to play at a cocktail party hosted by Vernon's wealthy uncle, Jean Galland, a missing waistcoat threatens to tear the pair apart. Co-scripted by Annette Wademant, the screenplay is full of farcical situations and sparkling exchanges that capture the frissons of wedded bliss with a pithy wit and insouciant sensuality that make this deceptively simple (if occasionally chauvinist) story so engaging. There are pops at bourgeois pomposity, as Gélin has to borrow a waistcoat from cousin-in-law Jacques François, whose sneering contrasts with the way the soirée guests treat waiter Grégoire Gromoff. But Becker is more concerned with the French personality than social hierarchies and delights in watching the antics of flirtatious wives Betty Stockfield and Elina LaBourdette and bluff ex-pat millionaire William Tubbs. Such is the spark between Gélin and Vernon that Becker would reunite them two years later on the charming, but slighter Rue de l'estrapade.

CASQUE D'OR (1952) - Based by Becker and Jacques Campanéez on actual events that occurred in the Belleville district of Paris in the early 1900s, this often feels more like one of Jean Renoir's sunnier outings than a film noir in the manner of Marcel Carné. Having tried to go straight since leaving prison, carpenter Serge Reggiani runs into old cellmate Raymond Bussières at a rustic riverside guinguette, where he also makes the acquaintance of crook William Sabatier and an entourage that includes right-hand man Claude Dauphin and his coquettish moll, Simone Signoret. Reggiani instantly loses his heart. But a knife fight and his adherence to the apache code of honour means that the romance is doomed from the start. Signoret won a BAFTA for her luminous performance in this enthralling melodrama, whose fin-de-siècle atmosphere is so deftly caught by Jean d'Eaubonne's Impressionist-inspired production design, Antoine Mayo's exquisite costumes and Robert Le Fèbvre's shimmering monochrome photography. Marguerite Renoir's fluent editing and the exemplary ensemble playing are also worthy of note. But Becker imposes his own authorial imprint, as well as a psychological intensity and cinematic grace that ensure that this study of machismo and femme fatality repays repeat viewings.

TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI (1954) - Restoring Jean Gabin to his rightful place at the apex of French cinema, this loose adaptation of a hard-boiled Albert Simonin novel began the reclamation of film noir from Hollywood with its irresistible blend of Carnéan fatalism and chic modernity. Preoccupied more with American mistress Marilyn Buferd than the Orly heist making the headlines, Gabin's Parisian gangster despairs of old confederate René Dary when he tells dancer lover Jeanne Moreau about the gold bars they have stashed away. He offers Dary sanctuary in his secret hideaway after Moreau's thuggish paramour, Lino Ventura, tries to abduct him. When he eventually succeeds, Gabin enlists the help of club owner Paul Frankeur and strong-arm Marcel Jourdan to exchange Dary for the loot. But, while Gabin may crave the quiet life, don't be fooled by the sight of him in his pyjamas offering Dary fussy hospitality, as he remains a sharp operator and responds with unflinching ruthlessness when Ventura tries to double-cross him. Jean d'Eaubonne's production design and Pierre Montazel's imagery are crucial to establishing the contrasts between the underworld and high society. But, despite the simmering tension and the explosive climax, Becker is more interested in character and the themes of ageing, friendship and loyalty than the slow-burning narrative. Hence, he keeps close to the outstanding Gabin, whose award-winning performance is deftly counterpointed by the harmonica theme composed by Marc Lanjean and played by Jean Wiener. Gilles Grangier and Georges Lautner would go on to adapt Simonin's Le Cave se rebiffe (1961) and Les Tontons flingueurs (1963). But, even though they respectively star Gabin and Ventura, they lack that Becker touch.

LE TROU (1960) - Becker died a few weeks after he finished shooting this gripping adaptation of José Giovanni's account of his own attempted break from Paris's notorious Santé Prison. He was spared, therefore, the cool reception his swan song received in comparison to Robert Bresson's A Man Escaped (1956). But, over time, critics have realised the audacity of Becker's shift in style towards the self-reflexive immediacy of the nouvelle vague and the adroitness of his allegorical musings on cinema as a form of escape. As the action opens some time in 1947, Marc Michel is jailed for the attempted murder of his wife and billeted with Michel Constantin, Jean Keraudy, Philippe Leroy and Raymond Meunier. This hard-bitten quartet has hatched a plan to dig their way through the concrete floor into the cellars and sewers below and, even though they have no reason to trust the stranger, they have no option but to take him into their confidence. Michel watches nervously as his confrères work and celebrates their successes, as well as sharing in their tense encounters with the guards and some plumbers who come to work in their cell. But an air of inevitability hangs over proceedings that are photographed in gruelling long takes by Ghislain Cloquet to emphasise the physicality of the toil and the implacability of the materials through which the prisoners are trying to burrow. Rino Mondellini's sets are crushingly claustrophobic and as authentic as the cacophonous thuds and ominous silences in Pierre-Louis Calvet's sound mix and as such details in Giovanni's pared-down scenario as the homemade timer and periscope. But it's the way Becker makes us root for the non-professional cast (one of whom, Keraudy, was actually Giovanni's cellmate) and experience everything they have to endure that makes this the greatest prison picture ever made.

COMEDY.

Joseph McGrath's THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN (1969) - Terry Southern's cult novel was adapted by a quintet that included the director, the author, Peter Sellers, John Cleese and Graham Chapman. McGrath had cut his teeth directing promos for The Beatles. So, the Glaswegiann was able to coax Ringo Starr into returning to the screen for the first time since his involvement in Christian Marquand's Candy (1968), Southern's update of Voltaire's classic satire, Candide. He had also directed Sellers's scenes in the misfiring 1967 James Bond romp, Casino Royale. But, in spite of being able to pack the supporting cast with famous faces, McGrath struggled to capture the source's macabre comedy. Yet, for all its flaws and whopping self-indulgences, this has much more than curiosity value.

Bored with his life of luxury on the banks of the Thames, millionaire Guy Grand (Peter Sellers) adopts a hobo he finds in the park and dubs him Youngman Grand (Ringo Starr). Together, they set out to expose how venal, corrupt and greedy British society has become. They summon a board meeting and sack all the sycophantic directors (including Dennis Price) before using a giant gun to shoot grouse (and annoy the aristocratic landowners). At the theatre, they persuade an actor (Laurence Harvey) to strip while he recites Hamlet's soliloquy, before offering traffic warden (Spike Milligan) a £500 bribe to eat a parking ticket. Having bought a Rembrandt portrait at Sotheby's simply to cut off its nose, the pair coax the Oxford coach (Richard Attenborough) to sabotage the Boat Race by ramming the Cambridge shell.

However, they soon tire of petty pranks and invite the great and the good aboard The Magic Christian for a cruise to New York. As the Priestess of the Whip (Raquel Welch) lashes her topless female rowers into powering the craft, Captain Reginald K. Klaus (Wilfred Hyde White) sets the course. But, while a lone drinker at the bar (Roman Polanski) listens to a torch song by a sultry chanteuse (Yul Brynner), a vampire (Christopher Lee) runs amuck and the ship soon runs aground. Undeterred, Guy and Youngman fill a pit with urine, blood and excrement and invite everyone to fish for coins to the strains of Badfinger's `Come and Get It'.

The song was, of course, written by Paul McCartney and there's a further Fabs gag in the fact that Kimberley Chung plays a Yoko Ono lookalike. Spotting such trinkets is half the fun of watching what is, essentially, a clumsy Swinging London variation on Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1961). Some have claimed it as the moment the torch was passed from The Goons to the Pythons. But that is to give too much credit to a muddled misfire that is never as shocking or amusing as it clearly thinks it is. However, who can entirely resist a picture with walk-ons for the likes of John Le Mesurier, Guy Middleton, Roland Culver, Peter Graves, Jimmy Clitheroe, Hattie Jacques, Fred Emney, Patrick Cargill and Clive Dunn?

DRAMA.

EA Dupont's MOULIN ROUGE (1928) - Following his international succcess with Varieté (1925), Edvald André Dupont worked regularly in Britain and followed this Parisian debut with two more silents, Piccadilly and Atlantic (both 1929), and the early talkies, Two Worlds (1930) and Cape Forlorn (1931). While it lacks the visual daring and dynamism of his thrilling circus story and the sly wit of his bittersweet tale of racial prejudice in the heart of London's West End, this Pigalle melodrama boldly contrasts showbiz glamour and street reality, as it chronicles the complex relationship between cabaret sensation Olga Tschechowa and her daughter, Eve Gray. Despite the fact there was only a three-year gap between the actresses, Tschechowa makes an alluringly world-weary demi-mondaine, as she flirts with stage-door marquis Michel Vibert and uses her wiles to convince snooty aristocrat Georges Tréville to let Gray marry his son, Jean Bradin, who has fallen recklessly in love with Tschechowa. Evocatively designed by Alfred Junge and photographed by Werner Brandes with an unsettling blend of sinuous camera movements and abrupt close-ups, this formulaic, yet fascinating saga culminates in a car chase that is crisply edited by Harry Chandlee. But, for all Dupont's directorial savvy, this remains most intriguing because of the incomparable Tschechowa, who was not only the niece of Anton Chekhov, but was also a likely Soviet agent who was detailed in the 1930s with befriending Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels.

Luis Buñuel's DEATH IN THE GARDEN (1956) - There's little point in pretending that this Franco-Mexican adaptation of a José-André Lacour novel is an overlooked masterpiece. But there are enough Buñuelian grace notes to ensure that this Communist parable on exploitation, oppression, individualism and greed is always watchable and often scurrilous. When a revolution breaks out in an unnamed Latin American country, the diamond miners who have staked everything on their claims appeal to local commander Jorge Martinez de Hoyos for support when the new regime orders them to evacuate their camp. Arriving in the midst of the furore, shifty adventurer Georges Marchal gets arrested for crossing feisty prostitute, Simone Signoret. However, she is grateful that he manages to bust out of jail in time to lead her, missionary priest Michel Piccoli and veteran prospector Charles Vanel and his deaf daughter Michèle Girardon on to a boat bound for Brazil. The trek through the jungle under duplicitous skipper Tito Junco proves anything but a picnic, however. Taking its time to pack in all the background plot details, this Eastmancolor epic becomes much more intriguing once the true natures of the eminently resistible characters start to emerge. The gold-digging Signoret plays off Vanel and Marchal with a slinky femme fatality, while Piccoli falls victim to numerous anti-clerical snipes before being shamed for claiming a miracle when food supplies are found on a crashed aeroplane. Raymond Queneau contributes a literary edge on the dialogue, which is delivered with telenovelettish relish by a cast clearly given licence to ham it up. Buñuel's direction is similarly replete with nudges and winks. But, while the outcome is impossible to predict, this is only marginally superior to its little-seen companion pieces, That Is the Dawn (1955) and Fever Mounts in El Pao (1956).

James Hill's THE BELSTONE FOX (1973) - Having started out with Oscar nominations for the moto-shorts Giuseppina (1961) and The Home-Made Car (1964), the versatile James Hill became synonymous with animal films. Following Born Free (1966), An Elephant Called Slowly (1970) and Black Beauty (1971), this adaptation of David Rook's novel, The Ballad of the Belstone Fox, contains echoes of David P. Mannix's 1967 tome, The Fox and the Hound, which was animated by Disney in 1981. Not one for the tinies, this engrossing morality tale has many lessons for older children to learn about the harsh realities of Nature and the relationship between humans and animals. At the heart of the story are an orphaned fox cub called Tag and a puppy named Merlin. Unaware that they are supposed to be enemies, the pair forge a bond that is encouraged by hunt leader Eric Porter and his wife, Rachel Roberts. But lord of the manor Jeremy Kemp and dog trainer Dennis Waterman have their doubts and they are realised when the cunning fox leads the pack across a railway line and Porter's obsession with exacting his revenge leads to further tragedy. Beautifully photographed around the Quantock Hills by James Allen and John Wilcox and capably played to a jaunty Laurie Johnson score, this is a far cry from the majority of anthropomorphised sagas and is all the better for it.

David Wickes's SILVER DREAM RACER (1980) - More (in)famous for its shock ending than anything that happens in the previous 110 minutes, this David Essex vehicle has not improved with age. However, such is its cult cachet that there's a grim satisfaction in seeing the restoration of David Wickes's original vision. The story is comic-strip tosh, as Essex persuades sister-in-law Diane Keen to let him fulfil his world championship dreams on the revolutionary motorbike designed by his late brother. Standing in the way, however, is brash American Beau Bridges, who also has designs on Essex's girlfriend, Cristina Raines. Much of the picture is soapily melodramatic, although there are `hilarious' comic interludes involving mechanic Essex and buddy Clarke Peters winding up radio-loving co-worker Nick Brimble at Harry H. Corbett's garage. But, after Bridges resorts to all sorts of dirty tricks to sabotage Essex, the British Grand Prix finale sticks to the track. It's hardly thrilling and the score is often as shaky as the SFX work. But at least we're now spared that `happy' ending.

Norman Stone's THE VISION (1987) - First shown in the BBC's Screen Two slot, this is an intriguing follow-up to Norman Stone and writer William Nicholson's collaboration on the TV version of Shadowlands (1985). Set during the early days of satellite broadcasting, the sinister storyline centres on The People's Channel that aims to spread its evangelical message across six countries in Europe. Boss Lee Remick wants washed-up anchorman Dirk Bogarde to front a marquee programme, but his devout wife, Eileen Atkins, has severe misgivings. Her faith in Bogarde is strained, however, when his affair with former secretary Lisabeth Miles is exposed and student daughter Helena Bonham Carter rips into him for his self-centred deceit. But, having realised the true intentions of Remick and her backers, Bogarde attempts to expose the truth on opening night. Despite the occasional lapse into melodramatics, this is a shrewdly prescient treatise on media manipulation that is firmly rooted in the tele-evangelist mentality that was then sweeping America. It also has plenty to say about the perils of allowing press barons to acquire too much influence. But, while Remick schemes smoothly and Atkins suffers with prickly pride, this is all about Bogarde, whose penultimate performance bristles with seething resentment, seedy insecurity and abashed decency.

EARLY MURNAU.

SCHLOSS VOGELÖD (1921) - While FW Murnau was the master of disconcerting chiaroscuro, this treatise on class, lust and guilt, adapted by Carl Mayer and Berthold Viertel from a serialised novel by Rudolf Stratz, may disappoint those hoping for another Nosferatu (1922). Yet this studied variation on the old dark house theme offers a sly social commentary on Weimar Germany, as it struggled to come to terms with defeat in the Great War and the crippling burden of reparations that had been imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. This is the old order atoning for past sins and the dream sequences - in which a sinister hand plucks a sleeping figure from its bed and a servant turns on his master - suggest a shift in the balance of power that is going to have disturbing repercussions for the junker elite. With torrential rain already threatening to ruin the hunting party thrown by the aristocratic Arnold Korff and Lulu Kyser-Korff, the atmosphere is further strained by the unsolicited arrival of count Lothar Mehnert, who is reputed to have murdered his brother, Paul Hartmann. His widow, Olga Tschechowa, is also a guest, along with her new husband, Paul Bildt, and she has several accusatory encounters with Mehnert that prompt her to announce her imminent departure. She is persuaded to stay, however, by the news that confessor Victor Blütner is travelling to the castle. But, when he suddenly disappears, the tension begins to mount again and suppressed secrets slowly begin to emerge. Technically, this may lack Nosferatu's audacious use of variegated speeds and negative images or the gliding subjective tracking shots of The Last Laugh (1924). But Hermann Warm and Robert Herlth's evocative sets and the moody photography of László Schäffer and Fritz Arno Wagner ensure that the reveries are deftly realised and, if some of the staging seems a little theatrical, the playing is notably restrained (especially by the debuting Tschechowa, the niece of Anton Chekhov who would go on to become a particular favourite of Adolf Hitler) and Murnau's cunningly employs long shots to locate the characters in their disconcerting environment. Indeed, the sequence in which Tschechowa and Bildt are situated at the extreme edges of the frame to convey the emotional distance between them is brilliantly reinforced by the addition of two rectangles of light at the far end of the cavernous room, which could be interpreted as either a way out of their predicament or a gaping, coffin-shaped hole from which there could be no escape.

PHANTOM (1922) - This was released the same year as Murnau's horror masterpiece, Nosferatu. Yet, despite its title, this long-lost, flashbacking saga is actually a morality tale that was adapted by Thea von Harbou (then Mrs Fritz Lang) from a novel by Gerhart Hauptmann. With its discussion of the social hierarchy, the temptations of the city and the corrupting power of lust - not to mention its brief use of subjective imagery - this anticipates the themes and techniques that would inform Murnau's finest silent melodramas, The Last Laugh and Sunrise (1927). Studious clerk Alfred Abel lives a simple life with hard-working widowed mother Frida Richard, flapper sister Aud Egede Nissen and art student brother Hans Heinrich von Twardowski (who also had an uncredited hand in the screenplay). However, Abel dreams of becoming a poet and his ambitions intensify when he is struck by rich blonde Lya De Putti's horse-drawn carriage and becomes convinced that celebrity affords his only chance of romancing her. He shows his verses to bookbinder neighbour Karl Etlinger (whose comely daughter, Lil Dagover, dotes on Abel) and he promises to pass them on to a professor whose opinion he trusts. Convinced that literary fame awaits him, Abel scrounges some money from pawnbroker aunt Grete Berger and is duped into borrowing an even bigger sum by Nissen's dissolute beau Anton Edthofer. But Abel squanders it on a prostitute who resembles De Putti and quickly hits the skids when his poetry is dismissed as doggerel and he is fired for absenteeism. With his mother on her deathbed, Abel is accused of theft by Berger and his sole hope while serving a 20-year sentence is that Dagover can somehow forgive him his folly. Given the current vogue for instant éclat and reckless self-indulgence, this is a surprisingly pertinent picture. The acting style has obviously dated, but Hermann Warm's production design remains exceptional and Murnau makes ingeniously expressive use of the towering buildings to suggest the guilt bearing down on the increasingly burdened Abel, as he loses everything in the impulsive pursuit of his elusive object of desire. Murnau's experiment with first-person perspective - as the camera approximates Abel's drunken viewpoint in the bar - is also noteworthy, as, some nine decades later, film-makers have yet to improve on such dislocatory tactics to give the viewer a visceral share in a character's experiences.

THE GRAND DUKE'S FINANCES (1924) - Murnau's customary visionary dexterity is largely absent from this often overlooked drama, as he clutters the action with intertitles and other printed matter to ease the convoluted story past its more obvious contrivances. Collaborating again with Von Harbou (whose inspiration this time came from a Frank Heller tome), Murnau clearly strives for the effortlessly witty sophistication that had been perfected by the great Ernst Lubitsch. But while this is consistently engaging, it's always defiantly a minor work. Harry Liedtke is the impecunious ruler of the island duchy of Abacco. Desperate to prevent his subjects from falling into the clutches of developer Guido Herzfeld (who covets the country's valuable mineral reserves), Liedtke agrees to marry runaway Russian princess Mady Christians. However, a forged copy of the letter sealing their deal emerges and, with threats of blackmail and a stock market crash hanging over them, the couple assume disguises and throw themselves on the mercy of charming rogue, Alfred Abel. Produced by Erich Pommer, this should have been a breezy comedy of errors and drawing-room manners. But while the performances are polished and amusing, Murnau struggles to maintain momentum and it's easy to see from his endless resort to newspapers, letters and captions to explain the various intrigues and alliances why sound would be so eagerly seized upon by film-makers worldwide just three years later. Yet, in the same year that Alan Crosland changed cinema forever with The Jazz Singer (1927), Murnau demonstrated the poetic potency, psychological subtlety and pictoric beauty of the silent screen with Sunrise.

MISCELLANY.

Karel Zeman's THE FABULOUS BARON MUNCHAUSEN (1962) - First adapted by Georges Méliès as Baron Munchausen's Dream (1911), Rudolf Erich Raspe’s Baron Munchausen's Narrative of His Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia (1785) has since been filmed with distinction by Josef von Baky (1943), Karel Zeman (1962) and Terry Gilliam (1988). Each version has its merits and points of interest, but the most consistently exhilarating was produced by the peerless Czechoslovakian animator, who took his visual inspiration from the illustrations of Gottfried August Bürger and Gustave Doré. But it was the space race that prompted Zeman to blend Raspe with hints of Méliès, Jules Verne and Fritz Lang, as he used live action, cut-outs and stop-motion animation to reimagine the familiar tale in his own distinctive manner. Following an opening reverie on the history of flight, a spaceship carrying Tonik (Rudolf Jelínek) lands on the Moon, where he is greeted by Cyrano de Bergerac (Karel Höger) and the Vernean moonmen, Stuyvesant Nicholl (Zdenek Hodr), Michel Ardan (Otto Šimánek) and Impey Barbicane (Richard Záhorský). They introduce Tonik to Baron Munchausen (Miloš Kopecký), who is clad in 18th-century fashions and becomes convinced that the cosmonaut is an alien. So, Munchausen takes Tonik back to Earth to see how humans live and entangles him in a series of misadventures including the rescue of Princess Bianca Di Castello Nero (Jana Brejchová) from the Turkish sultan (Rudolf Hrušínský), a bid to aid the besieged General Ellemerle (Eduard Kohout) and an encounter with a giant fish during a naval battle. The performances are laudably pantomimic. But it's Zeman's ingenuity and artistry that take the breath away, particularly with his use of billowing red ink during the horseback chase sequence and the scene in which Munchausen and Tonik are confounded by an unopenable castle door. Anyone who fails to find this endlessly inventive and surprising masterwork enchanting and hilarious is clearly beyond help and pity.

Clément Cogitore's NEITHER HEAVEN NOR EARTH (2015) - Also known as The Wakhan Front, this disconcerting twist on the Afghan combat picture feels like a cross between John Ford's The Lost Patrol (1934) and Michelangelo Antonioni's L'avventura (1959). But a supernatural tension also pervades proceedings as French commander Jérémie Renier tries to keep his platoon focused on their NATO peace-keeping duties outside a sheep-farming village on the Pakistani border. As his men pass the time in pumping iron, bantering and dancing to frenzied techno à la Denis Lavant in Claire Denis's Beau Travail (1999), Renier becomes increasingly suspicious of a herding ritual that he is convinced is being used to pass coded messages to the enemy. But, while he thinks the Taliban are responsible for the mysterious disappearance of his men, his insurgent counterpart is convinced the French are abducting his own fighters. The truth, however, is far more worrying, as the commanders discover when they call a truce to investigate. Cannily scripted by Cogitore and Thomas Bidegain, this is an engrossing study of the horror of war that is played with muscular trepidation by a fine ensemble. When not scouring the forbidding landscape, Sylvain Verdet plunges his handheld camera into the middle of firefights to capture the chaos and carnage that contrasts with the intensity of the long periods of silent uncertainty. Atmospherically scored by Eric Bentz and François-Eudes Chanfrault, this may plump for a few too many generic jolts. But it also presents the stressed soldier's lot from an unsettlingly fresh perspective.

Stuart Staples's MINUTE BODIES: THE INTIMATE WORLD OF F. PERCY SMITH (2016) - Directed by Stuart Staples, who also performs the score with his band The Tindersticks, this is a wonderful tribute to the father of time-lapse, underwater and micro-cinematography. Born in London in 1880, the self-taught Frank Percy Smith came to the attention of pioneering film producer Charles Urban when he saw a photograph he had taken of a bluebottle's tongue. Between 1908-43 (two years before his suicide), Smith used a homemade camera in his house/studio in Southgate to make numerous shorts that revealed an unseen world to awe-struck audiences. Deftly combining scientific rigour, artistry and showmanship, the films that Smith made for Urban, himself and for British Instructional's Secrets of Nature series captured all aspects of plant and animal life in unprecedented detail. In dry terms, he recorded processes like pollination, photosynthesis, growth, reproduction, death and decay. But the immediacy and intimacy of the various eggs hatching, limbs stretching, microbes glistening, frogs hopping, newts darting, stems elongating, buds opening and runner beans twisting is often mesmerising, as the marvels of existence are framed in monochrome against black backgrounds that focus the gaze. The French-based Staples and editor David Reeve make respectful, but imaginative use of Smith's meticulously restored footage. But, while this labour of love has a beauty to match its fascination, the score co-composed by pianist Christine Ott can seem a little self-satisfied and intrusive.