Between music and love lies a secret obsession.<BR>&nbsp;

Between music and love lies a secret obsession.

Percy Grainger was reportedly the most brilliant pianist of his day, he was also a composer and a radical and provocative intellectual. Passion focuses on the time Grainger spent in England before World War 1 in exploring the complex and problematic relationship Grainger had with his syphilitic mother Rose. Rose had been a hard taskmaster on Percy and her discipline of her precociously talented son in his early years had led to its own obsessions. Richard Roxburgh plays Percy Grainger, Barbara Hershey his mother Rose and the British actress Emily Woof plays the Danish musician Karin Holten, a woman who found herself willingly entering Grainger`s world of pain and passion... Like a lot of people, I know of Percy Grainger, but I don`t know a lot about him. Passion has taught me a lot. This is such a beautifully made film by Peter Duncan, working with a screenplay by Don Watson. Duncan uses music so intelligently to counterpoint the various interests and frustrations in Grainger`s life. Richard Roxburgh apparently looks a lot like Grainger but he brings more than mere looks to help us understand this provocative and eccentric man who could so easily alienate an audience. Barbara Hershey is wonderful as Rose, a tough, troubled woman who had created her own monster and was heartbroken by the fact. Emily Woof is terrific as Karin, but also really impressive were Claudia Karvan and Simon Burke as Grainger`s Danish accompanists. It would be so easy to make a tacky film about Grainger, it`s not so easy to make an insightful film about a wildly eccentric talent and the devils that drive it.David`s comments:Passion tells a fascinating story, but pulls its punches. Percy Grainger was evidently very much into s & m, but the film, though it contains bits of this, plays down the scenes of kinky sex - maybe in fear of censorship. As a result, the R rating given to the film is ludicrously harsh and very misleading. Performances are generally good - I especially liked Emily Woof - but the film, which begins rather abruptly, isn*t always as revealing as it might have been and, though beautifully made and consistently intriguing tends to lack what is most needs - Passion. Still, its merits on the whole outweigh its deficiencies.