Piano competition
Manager: Dominique Deruddere
Artists: Taeke Nicolaï, René Vanderjeugd, Anne Coesens
Year: 2023
Premiere: 7/25/24
★★
Belgian director Dominique Deruddere emerged in the late 1980s with two striking features, Crazy Love and Wait for Spring, Bandini, adaptations that brought together the grit of Bukowski with the lyrical pulse of Fante. After a period of quieter output, his career has spanned only a handful of titles in recent decades. The film known here as the piano competition counters any assumption of a swift revival; it arrives as a slow-burn portrait, more attentive to mood than to explosive plot twists, and it invites audiences to linger with its characters long after the final note has faded.
In the centre of this narrative sits a young pianist, one of eleven finalists in a prestigious competition. The competition venue, a secluded place named La Capilla, becomes a character in its own right: a sanctuary that strips away distractions—no laptops, no mobile phones, no outside world intruding on the focus required for a performance of such caliber. The film alternates between the tense immediacy of practice and the fraught undercurrents that accompany any serious pursuit of mastery. As the pianist works through scales, interpretations, and emotional blocks, the audience is granted access to a past that still shapes the present.
The film shifts between scenes of concentration and flashes of memory that reveal a childhood marked by a possessive mother who equates fame with validation and a father who destroys the very instrument that once defined a family’s hope. These memories surface with a restrained intensity, refracting the present through a prism of long-held wounds. The tension is not manufactured through melodrama but through the slow accrual of details—the way a hand trembles before a difficult passage, the hesitation before stepping onto the stage, the unspoken fear that success might come at the cost of personal silence.
Deruddere’s approach to storytelling leans toward analytical observation, favoring a measured tempo that rewards patient viewing. The piano competition setting provides a familiar scaffold for examining the psychology of performance: pressure from judges, the weight of public expectation, the delicate balance between technique and expression. Yet the director’s emphasis on craft over sensation yields a film that is more contemplative than sensational. The score itself—lush and classical—serves as a sonic mirror to the protagonist’s inner world, occasionally intensifying emotion even when the on-screen actions remain quiet or restrained. The music does not simply accompany the drama; it acts as a barometer for the character’s evolving relationship to the act of making music.
Read as a study of behavior, the film offers a deliberate, almost clinical look at what it means to pursue excellence when the personal life is tangled in unresolved pain. The ensemble of characters—fellow finalists and the extended circle surrounding the competition—contribute textures that deepen the emotional landscape without tipping into melodrama. The result is a narrative that feels earned, with outcomes that may be understated yet resonate in the long view. The interplay between memory and present-day performance creates a rhythm that is at once reflective and quietly intense, inviting viewers to consider how childhood experiences continue to shape the decisions of adults who, in the moment, are trying to find their own voice on a public stage.
On a tonal level, the film offers a measured, almost clinical beauty. The pacing favors reflection over action, and the photography captures intimate micro-moments—the clamp of a jaw before a long note, the squeeze of a wrist as tension builds, the breath that alters a phrase just enough to shift its character. These details accumulate into a portrait of a performer negotiating both external scrutiny and internal doubt. While the score provides an enveloping emotional current, it is the quiet, almost inimical energy of the characters that lingers. For viewers seeking a narrative that rewards close listening and attentive viewing, the work delivers an experience that is rich in implication, even when not all questions meet decisive answers. The emotional journey unfolds through restraint, rather than through dramatic revelation, reflecting a philosophy of cinema that values precision over spectacle. The result is a film that invites conversation long after the credits roll, as audiences reflect on the cost and craft of artistic pursuit.
The piano competition, in the end, is less about winning and more about the ongoing process of becoming. It is a meditation on pressure, memory, and the intangible flow of artistry that can’t be boxed into a single declaration of success. The director’s choice to foreground character over plot makes the film feel intimate, almost confessional, while still maintaining a universal resonance. For anyone who has watched a performance with a deep desire to understand what lies beneath the final bow, this work offers a thoughtful, resonant answer that lingers in the mind long after the last note.
— Attribution: Details based on production notes and critical reception [attribution].