03/09/2002 - Music for Weddings and Funerals is based on Unni Straume’s experience of life in Southern Italy – chaotic order

Chaos and order. Seemingly a contradiction in terms, but if you think about it, the very essence of human life on this earth. A clash of opposites that Sara, the protagonist of Unni Straume’s comedy (in competition in “Upstream” ) expresses when she says, “I want to be disturbed!”
Following a divorce and the death of her only son, Sara decides to turn her life around and starts by meeting new people, like the unpredictable and disorganised Serbian musician who comes to live downstairs. “I lived in southern Italy for many years and had to come to terms with the chaos and confusion. Although each one of us aspires to order and perfection, our secret hope is that life will surprise us,” said the director. Straume’s cast includes Goran Bregovic, who also wrote the score, and Lena Endre, an actress who has worked with directors of the calibre of Ingmar Bergman, Bille August and Liv Ullman. Already out in Norway, and coming soon to Sweden, Musik for bryllup og begravelse is a simple but never overly inward-looking story about the everyday lives of an interesting group of people. “This is a rare film,” said Goran Bregovic who accompanied his director to Venice, “because it has the rhythm of life.”

(Translated from Italian)