K.364 a Journey by Train

Following on from Douglas Gordon’s collaboration with Philippe Parreno, Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, the film k.364 is an exercise in portraiture, it is a portrait of a piece of music. It traces the journey made by Avri Levitan and Roi Shiloach – musicians of Polish Jewish origin – as they return to the lands their parents fled in 1939. It is a journey through a landscape and a past that is still only vaguely resolved for the protagonists. We accompany the musicians as they leave Berlin, travel through the town of Poznan, where the former synagogue is still used as a swimming pool. The journey takes them to the Warsaw concert hall to perform Mozart’s "Symphony in E-flat Major" with The Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of the Polish Radio. The film begins with a collage of sounds and abstract images from the municipal swimming pool of Poznan, which was, in fact, originally built as a synagogue in 1907. Then the introduction to the protagonists – Levitan, the violist and Shiloah, the violinist – as they take on the appearance of apparitions, shot in detail, through the reflection of the windows of the train as it travels over a desolate landscape which quickly becomes the canvas for another journey to take place – a journey of ideas, memories and music. The narratives of the past are personal, recounted by our players and entrenched in their point of view. As the journey continues, the stories accumulate, introducing a mixed palette of emotions – some sombre, of course, but also ones with humour and warmth.