Silk Road

Silk Road is a documentary motion picture by Curt Faudon about the history and music of the Vienna Boys' Choir. On top of this Faudon tries to tell a story of a virtual or imaginary tour by the boys on the ancient Silk Road. Soundtracks in 8 languages and subtitles in 9! Released 2009, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio  sound. Grade C

The core documentary about the history the Vienna Boys' Choir and their lives today is mildly interesting. The boys talented enough to be selected get an unusual and rich experience. Hearing snatches of their singing has whetted my appetite. Unfortunately, Curt Faudon seems to suffer from something called, I think, adult director attention deficit abnormality. This infirmity holds that the more special effects, gizmos, odd-ball shots, and extraneous material you can cram into the time allowed, the more valuable the documentary will be. The best example of this is the whole "silk road" conceit. Although I should have known better, I somehow got the idea that the boys actually followed the silk road as a kind of geography lesson. But no, it's a disjointed and confusing virtual trip, although they do get to China (by plane).

I would have preferred a shorter, traditional, linear documentary plus 30 minutes of actual music by each of the 4 choirs (which would total, say, 2 hours and 45 minutes). That would be a fine testimonial to the institution and worth the money to me. With the capacity we now have on the HDVD, it's no longer adequate to just do a documentary of an hour or so about a music subject. You should do the documentary and present a full program of music such as we are getting with the "Keeping Score" titles from the San Francisco Symphony.