Movie Review: Mozart's Sister

This beautifully directed movie, featuring the Férét family, is reminiscent of a fairytale. We are transported by stagecoach through a winter wonderland, and then oscillate between an abbey straight out of The Sound of Music and no less than the Palace of Versailles. The court costumes are exotic. The Mozarts, through Leopold’s (the father) obsessive urges to move his family from pillar post, are like a travelling circus. They are portrayed as being comfortably off and enjoy, in the main, good health and joie de vivre, despite papa’s domineering ways. His motive is to show off his precociously gifted children, Nannerl (15) and Wolfgang (10) in order that the Mozart name becomes famous and successful.

The music is a classical feast for viewers and central to the story. It is a wonderful companion to the film; from practice sessions, to salon performances including pure Mozart and fanciful pieces (by Marie-Jeanne Serero) portrayed as compositions by Nannerl, which she undoubtedly would have written but sadly did not survive her.

A rather charming romance develops between Nannerl and The Dauphin of France, ending with a twist. It has pantomime overtones, adding to the sense that we are deep in a fairytale, as for this part, we are.

But the point of the story is no fairytale. Nannerl, an innately talented musician who sings and plays the violin and the harpsichord with the same genius as her brother, is in his shadow. Wolfgang is the one promoted by his father as the child prodigy, Nannerl the neglected one for no other reason but that she is a girl. Leopold prevents her from playing the violin, or composing as soon as she becomes of marriageable age. Wolfgang takes the pedestal with his demonstrated genius She is demoted to accompanying him and singing at soirées. As a mere woman, she is no longer of interest.

There is a parallel thread to this story when we are introduced to Princesse Louise de France, to whom Nannerl becomes very close. One of the many illegitimate children of Louis XV, Louise with her sibling sisters has been effectively dumped at Fontevraud Abbey 250 km from Paris. They are as orphans, shunned by their father and disallowed from having any contact with their mother or brothers. Louis XV abnegates his responsibility for them in favour of the abbess and takes no interest in them. The sons of Louis XV, in contrast, remain at court.

Emotionally neglected, both girls put aside their dreams – Louise becomes a nun at a young age. Nannerl dedicates many years of her life living with her parents and attending to her father’s bidding.

Today we would deem both these examples to be gross discrimination, but this is not a feminist film, it is matter of fact about the life and times it depicts.

Fiction is intertwined with truth in an unchallenging way. The personality of the Dauphin is an interesting psychological take on a thoroughly confused young man, as well he might have been.

All in all, I enjoyed the film but was left feeling sad and mad that the exceptionally gifted Nannerl was allowed by her father to disappear into anonymity; the one to whom she had shown complete loyalty and obeisance.

Review by Heather Cameron.