“The Symphony No 9, or the Choral, had such an enormous impact that a superstition sprung up among subsequent composers that it tempted fate to venture beyond nine symphonies, the number at which Beethoven laid down his pen.”
“The film gives us unusually authentic-seeming pictures of village life and ritual, and invests the people with a certain dignity and sensibility, even if ultimately they prefer superstition and fear to science.”
