Deragh Campbell plays Audrey Benac in Measures for a Funeral.Supplied
Measures for a Funeral
Directed by Sofia Bohdanowicz
Written by Sofia Bohdanowicz and Deragh Campbell
Starring Deragh Campbell
Classification N/A; 142 minutes
Opens in select theatres Nov. 7
Critic’s Pick
It is no spoiler to say that the final few minutes of the new Canadian drama Measures for a Funeral feature a solitary character, an academic named Audrey Benac, situated inside a Montreal concert hall, pursuing a mysterious musical history. Audrey is physically alone but spiritually outnumbered – her inner life overwhelmed by a reality that too few of us ever achieve: that moment when, after spending a lifetime searching for something, you find what you’re looking for. (Don’t worry, this movie has nothing to do with Bono.)
The scene arrives with a whisper-quiet delicacy and is delivered with a matter-of-fact directness that belies its emotional, narrative and aesthetic intensity. It is the calm and collected centre of a magnificent storm – which feels like the best way to describe not just Measures for a Funeral as a whole, but the increasingly intimidating canon of Canadian filmmaker Sofia Bohdanowicz.
After having spent the past decade or so building up an entire cinematic universe around the esoteric and dogged pursuits of Benac – a character who’s previously been at the centre of four of the director’s films, always played by close collaborator Deragh Campbell – Bohdanowicz has crafted a coda of multitudes to her star creation, as ambitiously tremulous as it is quietly enigmatic.
Measures for a Funeral acts as a scholarly detective story. As Audrey Benac learns more about the career of violinist Kathleen Parlow, her life and mind begin to narrow themselves to dangerous degrees.Hongen Nar/Supplied
The simplest way to boil down Measures for a Funeral’s narrative is to think of it as a scholarly detective story about Audrey’s pursuit to learn more about the career of the real-life Canadian violinist Kathleen Parlow. A child prodigy from the early 1900s, Parlow worked with Thomas Edison and was nicknamed “The Lady with the Golden Bow” – she was a sensation in her time whose achievements have largely been forgotten today.
But as Audrey’s journey to learn more about Parlow grows, her life and mind begin to narrow themselves to dangerous degrees. Audrey is ignoring calls from her dying mother. She is isolating herself from friends. A PhD thesis turns into a fixation, which then tips into something ghostly and supernatural.
Shot both at home in Toronto and as far away as London and Oslo, Bohdanowicz’s film is easily her most ambitious undertaking yet. But the epic scope of the film, and its flirtations with genre, does not mean it ever gives way to mainstream sensibilities or any kind of elevator pitch-y simplicity. The conversations that Audrey has with friends, family and fellow scholars are idiosyncratically crafted and paced. Her journey is far from linear. And when she does make it to that concert hall near the end – where Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts a contemporary restaging of Parlow’s once-lost 112-year-old concerto, with the acclaimed violinist Maria Dueñas taking the place of Parlow – history doesn’t come alive so much as it is momentarily seanced into being. This is a haunted resurrection, not an uplifting revival.
Bohdanowicz seems well aware that she is offering up a stubborn kind of cinematic challenge ‐ a puzzle whose pieces aren’t intended to neatly lock. And Campbell, who co-wrote the film, is not giving anything up easily, either. Audrey is the best kind of inscrutable hero, as precise in her obsession as she is enigmatic in every other aspect of her life. For moviegoers starving for something new who, like Audrey, have nearly given up the ghost, Measures for a Funeral is a symphony, full and rich.