Philip Glass and Elena

Friends, there comes a time in every man's life when he must admit to having made a mistake. And here's mine: I'm suddenly OK with Philip Glass. You see, two movie nights ago, I made a snide remark about the film Elena using his score. I even doubted the movie selection because of it. I was wrong….

My first experience with Philip glass was during my freshman year in college. At the time, I was still going through my Hindustani music phase. It didn't help that one of my roommates was from the UAE / India (I love you, Aditya Shashi!). Yes, I was taking sitar lessons… but they were free thanks to my generous guru, Srinivas Komondouri. If I find a picture of myself playing the sitar from that epoch, I'll post it. And it will be slightly embarrassing. In any case, I vividly remember discovering a collaborative piece between Ravi Shankar and Glass. I loved it. Naturally, I sought out more Glass, so I torrented all I could find. It was disappointing: tens of minutes of boorish ostinato supporting a complete lack of overarching melodic structure or nervously extended intervals of repetitive open strings really set the mood for an overly-hyphenated-one-man-all-alone-in-his-dorm-room-studying-physics psycho-thriller. I must have tried for hours to find something I could enjoy, but I guess I just couldn't handle the monumental minimalism (writing this, I simultaneously thought of a Spanish version of this alliteration: manantial de minimalismo).

This guy…Philip Glass.

Fast forward to present day. Rather, 13 days ago: Elena and her husband Vladimir are condemned to their own personal cycles of repetition. We see in the encounter between Vladimir and his estranged daughter, Katerina, that they in fact are very close and loving. Despite her multiple relapses with substance abuse, Vladimir is mostly forgiving of his daughter's squandering the opportunities he provided. Katerina brushes off her father's criticisms, resulting in a warm interaction between father and daughter. Similarly, Elena seeks to provide for her son, and more importantly her grandson, no matter his motivation or lack thereof. Indeed, Elena knows no bounds to 'by any means necessary' when she impedes Vladimir's plans for his inheritance. Of course, she (and we) already knows that Vladimir wishes to leave the majority of his estate to Katerina knowing well she may simply squander it entirely. Thus are the hellacious cycles: fighting and reconciliation without progress; perpetuating dependencies without consequences; and of course, life and death.

This is precisely why the Philip Glass symphony was a great choice for this movie's theme. His directionless tendencies perfectly mirrored the narrative component of Elena. The characters are doomed to stagnation in one form or another. Musically, in Symphony #3 Mov. #3 (found in the grooveshark album for Elena), Glass creates the sense of a constant force, albeit around a fixed locus. Melodically static, the theme doesn't really go anywhere: there is no climax or apex, no goal. Instead, Glass sets up a perpetual motion machine reflecting the cycles we see in Elena. I've listened to the movement a number of times now, and can feel exactly what Andrey Zvyagintsev wanted to show us in the film! Hold your horses. I'm not saying that I can listen to the majority of Glass's work just for 'fun'. I would hesitate to say I 'love' it, but I will say that my nascent appreciation for his music requires some more statistics. But at least I can give him a chance given the right setting: paired with a story based on repetitive cycles, Philip Glass possibly can be enjoyed. Maybe he should have written the score to The Lion King! :P 
Love to all,

  --FFF