Searching for Sergei (2021)
Jean-Paul Gasparian
3min 18s | Jean-Paul Gasparian | Rachmaninoff | Arpeggio Films | Julien Hanck (director) |
Evidence classics
This short musical fiction aims to pay homage to the passion of the pianist Jean-Paul Gasparian for two Russian masters: the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff and the filmmaker Andreï Tarkovski. Bathed in the haunting music of the composer's fourth musical moment, this clip shows the young pianist struggling with the onset of dementia as he enters Rachmaninoff's work. Throughout his hallucinatory stroll in a village evoking the Bagno Vignoni of Tarkovsky's Nostalghia, the young artist seeks to get rid of the heady presence of the composer and his music, until he burns his master's scores in a scene that is meant to be a nod to several films by the Russian filmmaker.