" Thy Kiss of Divine Nature – Perotin – A Man of our Time "
inpetto film production Berlin 2003

Film by Uli Aumüller
35mm/HD 25p – 93 min. 16:9 5.1

Hilliard Ensemble
   David James, Countertenor
   Rogers Covey-Crump, Tenor
   Steven Harrold, Tenor
   Gordon Jones, Baritone

Johann Kresnik, Choreographer

A clip can be seen
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Perotin DVD-Edition
Soundtrack Audio-CD
More Information

The name of the composer Perotinus Magnus (approx. 1170 -- approx. 1230) marks the beginning and at the same time the first blossom of the European vocal polyphony. If one considers that polyphony represents the outstanding element of European music culture in comparison with other musical world cultures, our film goes on the search for the beginnings, the course of European identity, and to be more precise not only the musical one.

The invention of polyphony is connected with a number of extra-musical innovations of these time, e.g. the Gothic architecture, the invention of the clock, the invention of the money (in its for today still valid abstract meaning), the invention of the division of labour and has in addition a central importance around the cult of the holy virgin Maria, primarily the legend of the spotless conception, that exerted a virtually manic fascination at the complete European world of thought at that time.

Perotins music because of her concentration and overwhelming beauty moves even today's listener (and by far not only the musically trained ones) in her spell and with the Hilliard Ensemble we have the at the moment most famous and most competent ensemble for this kind of music at our disposal. With the technical possibilities of the 21st century our film will create a contemporary film language that allows to reconstruct a part of the effect, that Perotins music had on the listeners of the 12th and 13th centuries.

This is not an easy task, because he legend of the virgin conception nowadays primarily remained in memory as having been arisen out of sexually wild man’s brains.

But this doesn't declare the fascination that this idea had throughout the complete Middle Ages. In our film we primarily make use of two means:

On the one hand the church room in which the Hilliards interpret Perotin’s music will be decorated in the course of the film with an effortful light choreograpy. Animated frescos, cathedrals of light arise to the walls of the body of the church and these colourful picture information are in close connection with the texts and sounds of Perotin songs.

The topic of the light as a strap substance of the divine spirit was form stamping in the architecture of the Gothic and so it only becomes lead out by us and today's spectator gets comprehensible through this

The second topic is the dance, a choreography of Johann Kresnik, inspired by the ecstatic medieval dances for holy Mary, the dance of two women who have got into her heads to seduce the sacred spirit, kindling a love story between sky and earth. One of them doesn’t se that this spirit actually comes, she carries an eye bandage, she is blind and the other woman notices him, is being crowned and gets pregnant.

Both stories, the cathedral from light and the production of the dance are brought together at the end of the film. The dance is projected to the ceilings and walls of the church, her room changes into a dancing body from light. If one considers that every church symbolizes a human body, the body Christi and the body of the woman who has given birth to him, then this passage of the film underlines only one aspect of the legend which has already become stone in the architecture of the church buildings. And the music is just a part of the complete production.

Partner of the film "Thy Kiss of Divine Nature"

Bavarian Broadcasting

ARTE France

Filmfoundation Schleswig-Holstein MSH

Filmfoundation Berlin-Brandenburg MBB

Filmfoundation Baden-Württemberg MFG

Cinegate GmbH (HD-cameras and filmequipement)

Bewegte Bilder AG (pre- and postproduction, projection technology)

Digital Images GmbH (DVD-production and TV-distributor)

Edition Salzgeber (Film Distribution Germany)