Margarethe von Trotta | Vision Aus dem Leben der Hildegard von Bingen (2009)

Margarethe von Trotta’s Vision Aus dem Leben der Hildegard von Bingen (2009) is inspired by the intriguing Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179). The exemplary subject, costuming, lighting, architecture and photography combine to produce a good film. However, it is the integrity of the music that makes the film exceptional. Hildegard’s numerous gifts include composition and singing and Barbara Sukowa’s (Hildegard) fine voice (familiar through Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Lola (1981)) is heard. I am not able speedily to identify obsolete medieval stringed instruments, but something that certainly ought to be a ten-stringed psaltery appears under the deft fingers of a recumbent nun and it takes my breath away. 

She appears to have command of the instrument. On the evening I saw the film, a journalist provided a succinct introduction to the film, observing that comparison had been drawn between it and Carl Theodor Dreyer’s La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928) no doubt to Von Trotter’s disadvantage, as she would herself doubtless be the first to concede.  Notwithstanding, Vision does allude to Dreyer, in particular as Hildegard is examined by a dour throng of skeptical monks, questioning her claim to have divine visions. Further, Von Trotter does not shy from the devote self scourging and pure masochism of these brides (in His corporeal absence). After the death of the abbess, beneath the habit, I was expecting to witness a hair shirt perhaps seething with lice; but no. In a blissful Hammer moment, Von Trotter pulls all stops to discover a grisly delicate wire corslet that must be tugged from its pious host into whom it has stickily grown. Lately, I have frequently thought of this scene; though whilst listening to O frondens virga from Hildegarde’s Ordo Virtutum, one occasionally forgets.