Il sole nero

Veteran director Krzysztof Zanussi leaves his homeland Poland behind for the Italian, Sicily-based drama Il sole nero (Black Sun), an adaptation of the play by Rocco Familiari, which in turn was based on a true story that happened some twenty years ago. Il sole nero tells the story of Agata (Valeria Golino), a beautiful woman who lives an intense love story with her younger but equally beautiful husband Manfredi (Lorenzo Balducci). When the latter is suddenly assassinated and his wife finds out who the killer is and what he wants from her, Agata finds herself at a crossroads between forgiveness and vendetta. The dramatic score is composed and arranged by Wojciech Kilar. Kilar’s most important compositions include: Bram Stoker's Dracula, Death and the Maiden, The Portrait of a Lady, The Ninth Gate, The Truman Show, Pan Tadeusz, The Pianist, Zemsta, and We Own the Night. The main theme, “The Black Sun”, is a deliciously dark piano rhapsody very much in the vein of his score for The Portrait of Lady, backed by a bed of dense, tragedy-laden strings and a morose, almost funereal tempo. “Agata’s Theme” is a softer, slightly gentler variation on the main Black Sun theme, while “Salvo’s Theme” has an unsettling, see-sawing effect in the piano writing which is quite hypnotic. The whole score has a brooding, pseudo-classical aspect that fans of Kilar’s music will appreciate. Il Sole Nero is one of the 30 titles from the Sugar’s collection dedicated to the soundtracks that have made the history of film music. The collection will be released on March 13rd in a completely remastered version and with a new look edition. All the title of the series have been enriched with a text by Marco Muller, movie producer, critic and director of the most important film festival. He affirms: Cinema is the place where music becomes something different, carving for itself a specific role within a whole where it is as important as visual composition, editing , time and movement. Without music cinema would lose one essential element of its nature.Whenever important musicians have worked with important film-directors their strong individual personalities have always struck a balance where great music made a great film stronger and vice versa. These adventurous stories of Italian (and not only Italian) cinema are the subject of this well-thought re-proposition of the CAM catalogue. A selection of its greatest titles offering the opportunity to divert from a concert program of modernist music, or an alternative to light pop, to venture into a new continent just waiting to be (re-)discovered.