Measures for a Funeral

When Audrey Benac (Deragh Campbell) discovers a personal connection to legendary Canadian violinist Kathleen Parlow, she is compelled to dig deeper. Emotionally adrift, Audrey soon finds herself retracing Parlow’s steps, embarking on a journey from Toronto to London, Oslo, and finally Montreal. At the heart of it all is an elusive concerto, Opus 28, dedicated to Parlow and seemingly lost for over a century, but which Audrey is determined to bring to light — no matter the cost to her personal life. As Parlow herself once remarked, “Music begins where love leaves off.”

In Measures for a Funeral, the latest collaboration between actress Campbell and filmmaker Sofia Bohdanowicz, a real-life piece of music history comes thrillingly alive. Expanding the documentary-fiction elements of Veslemøy’s Song (2018) and MS Slavic 7 (2019) to a far greater emotional and narrative scale, this is a plangent exploration of time and memory. At once a ghost story, detective yarn, and archival investigation, it is a film about the mysterious power of music to move us.

This high-minded, dense and in many ways impressive drama about classical music from Canadian director Sofia Bohdanowicz could serve as an introspective companion piece to Tár. Where Todd Fields’ film was concerned with artists out in the world and modern cancel culture, here the focus is unswervingly on art itself: its inner sustaining emotional function for the artist and, more widely, for all of us.

Phil Hoad, The Guardian