Apparition of the Eternal Church

The movie captures the responses of 31 authors musicians filmmakers and dancers to Olivier Messiaens monumental organ work Apparition of the Eternal Church Listening to the 10minute piece through headphones the documentary subjectsmost of whom are outsiders to the church and do not know what theyre hearingput Messiaens project to the test Is it possible to portray through timebound invisible sound the spiritual the architectural the eternal The result is a collective interpretation improvising its way through an aesthetic landscape defined by violent contradictions Resolution abuts eternity eroticism asceticism spiritual ecstasy physical torture Together the music and its interpreters conjure something like what William Blake famously called the marriage of heaven and hell