Louis van Beethoven Review: A Wonderful, Humanizing Look At The Larger Than Life Composer

Release date: December 16, 2020
Running time: 119 minutes
Starring: Tobias Moretti, Colin Pütz, Anselm Bresgott, Ulrich Noethen
Written and Directed By: Niki Stein

As the world commemorates the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven, Film Movement invites audiences to commemorate the musical prodigy’s rich and fascinating life with LOUIS VAN BEETHOVEN, a lavish biographical drama which opens on the final stanza of his life.  Despite Beethoven’s great successes, most recently with the Ninth Symphony, he struggles because his late work completely overwhelms his contemporaries. Now completely deaf, he looks back at missed opportunities throughout his life in this sweeping look the life and times of one of the world’s most renowned composers.

Louis van Beethoven is a fascinating look into the life of Beethoven.  It really feels like a window in the past with some amazing costumes and sets to transport you back to that time.  The outfits, the homes, the musical halls, everything feels authentic and period appropriate.  The film visits three distinct periods in Beethoven's life and to do this, uses three different actors to play the legendary figure.  Tobias Moretti, Colin Pütz, and Anselm Bresgott all portray the composer at various stages in his life and each does a wonderful job at this.  And the film does not progress linearly; rather it jumps back and forth through Beethoven's life and makes connections to various events throughout.  This storytelling can be a little confusing, but overall it gives you a greater sense of the man and how his experiences shaped who he was and what he believed.  

And as you would expect from a movie about Beethoven, the music is fantastic.  It utilizes many pieces from the composer's repertoire, but what I loved about this movie is that it is not just utilized as background music.  Rather, the music is a part of the film and is played for both setting but also played by the characters.  Often it blends with the occurrences in the film, coming in as a composition being played in the film itself, and the line between soundtrack and substantive story blurs.  I really enjoyed seeing Beethoven's famous pieces both framed in the film and also used to accentuate the man's life.  

But where Louis van Beethoven succeeds the most is simply in telling this story.  Beethoven and Mozart are some of the most famous and well known composers in history, and this film humanizes them to a great degree.  Not only do you see their genius in action, but you also see their day-to-day life and problems.  You see them struggle with debts, with the class system of Europe at the time, and with family and relationship troubles.  And it lets you empathize and understand these mythical figures in a way I never had before.  It takes these icons off their pedestal to give everyone a greater appreciation of the people, rather than the figures. 

Louis van Beethoven's composes a wonderful portrayal of the Beethoven's life with its wonderful cast, excellent use of music, and humanizing story of the larger than life figure.

Watch it.

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