“Paris in the 1920s. Russian choreographer Ida Rubenstein commissions Maurice Ravel — already considered France’s greatest living composer — to write the score for her next ballet. She wants “something carnal, something bewitching, something erotic.” Yet the phlegmatic Ravel comes up empty… and is thrust into a protracted creative limbo. A tribute to the timelessness of the composer’s haunting masterpiece, Bolero, writer-director Anne Fontaine takes us on a deconstructed, elliptical journey through the idiosyncratic life of Maurice Ravel, via his struggle to complete that 17-minute piece of music. Sumptuously photographed and boasting an exquisitely restrained performance by Raphaël Personnaz, the film is a moving tribute to a perfectionistic artist and his struggle to give voice to the intoxicating sounds in his head.” …. American French Film Festival
