Review

Me and a friend went to see About Canto, a film about the music piece Canto Ostinato. The film is not about the music itself though, it's about the impact it has had on different people. Which could make an interesting film, if the characters would be interesting. And by that, I don't mean it should include more friends of Dutch actrice Halina Reijn - who had to dance on the Canto in acting school - I am saying that of some of the people that were chosen now, had no interesting Canto story to tell: "I just listened to it when I was little and played with my lego," a student tells us, while sitting behind a grand piano in her tiny student room.
Eventually, however, the cinematic choices of director Ramon Gieling were more annoying than the characters and made me and my friend (him in lesser extent) very giggly while the film proceeded.

In a master class Rene Appel (who directed Zij gelooft in mij about the Dutch singer Andre Hazes), said that he never showed what the people in his films talked about. You should not weaken the story with accompanying pictures, he said. Gieling should have attended that master class, because the flashbacks that accompanied the stories in About Canto are absolutely terrible and they are not correct. When the girl talks about lego, you don't let her play with wooden blocks in the flaschback. Furthermore, it seemed that the makers had found a cd with sound effects, and had used them whenever they found it appropriate. Bird sounds. Rain drops. Everything was so loud, it seemed like the sound engineer had glued them on to his microphone.

In each interview, the voice of the director is audible at some point, saying things like: "You told me earlier that you ... (then an anecdote followed) .. can you elaborate on that?" Why does Gieling want to be present in his own film? Why do we need to know he had earlier conversations with his characters? I'd rather hear them tell their stories. Even if they all came down to one same thing: The Canto Ostinato had made a tremendous impression and changed their life. We got that message after three times already.

One of the interesting characters, musicologist Henkjan Honing, was filmed from below, while giving a lecture in an almost empty auditorium of the University of Amsterdam, with some female students scattered in the large room, supposedly looking up to him. The irritation of the camera angles was greater than the attention to his interesting content.
The pictures behind researcher Johannes Bentz showed roundabouts - which is what the Canto reminds him of - and were beautiful. Just like the scenes of a roundabout, where at some point it really seems to show how a pedestrian is hit by a car. Is it a joke of the film maker?

Then, at the end, 'the master himself', composer Simeon ten Holt is being interviewd, and again, Gieling refers to earlier discussions. At that time, I already lost my focus and could only stare at the old composer, whose body seemed to be one big blob, which made me wonder if he was wearing a snuggy? When he then - in our opinion slightly irritated - answered Gielings questions, I really believed we got fooled and we were watching one of Wim de Bie's characters. Of course, I can't blame Ten Holt nor Gieling this, but the hilarity that I had slowly built up during the film, now turned into the giggles, which I had not experienced in a long time.

Thanks for that, Ramon Gieling. And my apologies to the other cinema audience.

The music itself is beautiful though: