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Gustav Mahler: Sterben werd' ich, um zu leben ("To Live, I Will Die"), its title deriving from the composer's adaptation of a poem by Klopstock in the "Resurrection" Symphony, remains somewhere between fact and fiction. It's a pseudo-documentary--in German, with sometimes inaccurate English subtitles-- that includes lingering scenes of Viennese interiors and Austrian countryside, almost always to the accompaniment of Mahler's music, punctuated by sparely staged fictional scenes and camera-direct narration from actresses playing soprano Anna von Mildenburg, composer Alma Schindler (who became his wife), and virtuous companion Natalie Bauer-Lechner, all of whom wrote reminiscences of the composer. The draw of the film remains the gorgeous footage of locales frequented by Mahler, including the opera houses where he conducted during the winter and the forest huts where he composed during the summer. Mahler, played by Reinhard Hauser, never shows his face and tends to recede into the background as a character. Although To Live, I Will Die could therefore be accused of becoming video wallpaper, it does foreground Mahler's work. And that, of course, is what lives forever. --Robert Burns Neveldine
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