Henry (II) (2015) User Reviews

Passion for music

[knill-46637 · 10/10 · 22 October 2020]

This is a movie for an audience which can associate with having passion for something, especially for music. The story might appears thin at first but it is not: Henry, a mute student enters a fancy boarding school, shows and displays enormous musical talent which triggers envy from a fellow student who bullies him, also physically. Henry stoically endures these ordeals and finds solice in music, especially the giant organ of the school and a dusty old organ in the basement. There is some disturbing violence, but despite the conclusion not completed within the movie the dramatic ending does not depress in the end (no more said here as the tension of the story at the end is really high and the ending not clear). The movie is in German, the music appearing is beautiful, the organ is played so that it goes under the skin, the characters are well played, especially the young actors are fantastic, absolutely no kitsch, no nonsense, and little psychological explanations for example and even a little surprise at the end when the story is really dramatic close to a thriller. The theme can be placed close to "Bildungsroman" (coming of age) kind, triggers associations to "the sorrows of young Werther" of Goethe or "the confusions of young Toerless" (a boarding school story of Musil), or "Beneath the Wheel" by Hesse, the story of Henry is much simpler, like an episode in a more complicated novel.