O somma luce

The lines start with “O Somma Luce” which is the title of the film and also the 67th line of the 33rd canto in “Paradiso” of Dante’(㊗)s “Divine Comedy” to the end of “Paradiso”.  The film is completed with music and lines instead of emotions and narrations.  This is a recent attempt to combine film with literature.　　The film begins with a black screen and the music of Edgard Varese. The BGM is “Deserts” that was recorded in 1954. After some moments of darkness, the music ends and a middle-aged man sits on a hill, reciting something. He is Giorgio Passerone, an Italian literature professor, and he is reading out of the last part of ‘Paradiso’(🦇) of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Jean-Marie Straub expressed how he thinks of Dante through a subtle accent and dialect. The director who had encoded many great artists and musicians including Bach, complete the combination of Dante and Varese, which could seem strange. (Lim Kyung Yong)……