Symphonia
This is the story of a tune that appeared in the Renaissance in Italy and has spread throughout Europe over the centuries. From Spain to Romania via Ukraine, Scotland, Belgium and Poland, this music has been divided into multiple songs – romantic, nostalgic or even comical – which today belong to the popular repertoire of their country. But the specificity of this melody does not stop there. It possesses a strange power: that of awakening the patriotic sentiment in the one who listens to it. In Czech Republic, for example, it is used to exalt the splendor of Bohemia and Czech people; in Sweden, it is sung to glorify the province of Värmeland, cradle of the Swedish soul ; in Catalonia it symbolizes Catalan irredentism ; and finally in Israel, it has even become a national anthem which signs the hope of seeing the Jewish people returning to their homeland of Zion. But this irresistible melody of optimism seems also to lend itself to the praise of the divine. Thus, in France, his few notes accompany the prayers of believers in synagogues but also in churches, whether evangelical, Protestant or Catholic. But if this melody is universally famous, to the point of being played every day in many concert halls around the world, to be used countless times in ballets, movies or plays, it is thanks to a 19th century composer named Smetana who wrote a symphonic poem entitled The Moldau…
Symphonia is a feature-length documentary project that takes the spectator on a musical journey, in the footsteps of this melody and its vagrancy through the ages and Europe. During this journey, countries, languages, identities, music and instruments come together and intersect around an element that confers unity on the whole; the melody. In each country, characters – musicians, performers, conductors or simple music lovers – tell the story and the meaning of this melody in their respective countries. To their explanatory narrative is grafted their intimate and personal testimony in which they tell their own story, describe their world, their complex identity, the society around them and finally reveal what specific relationship they have with this melody. From one interpretation of the melody to another (each one so close and different from the other at the same time), the spectator is led to lose his bearings and to break down the barriers between languages and countries. In doing so, he is invited to question the complexity and specificity of the European identity, so difficult to define as it is both multiple and unique. A bit like the melody …
