Mahler (1974).

Ken Russell for most of his career in moving pictures (on the large and small screen) reflected upon the works of others.

Music and music makers are superficially his thing, their lives have provided him with a series of scaffolds on which to construct rococo grotesque dream sculptures while also providing him with narratives and characters of depth with which to paint.

Mahler is in some ways quintessential Ken.

Painterly almost conventional biopic narrative, crisply photographed and performed with intense depth, collides with some of his most extreme, abstract, poetic, eye-bludgeoning, brain-exploding, visual symbolism.

In isolation either would be sufficient but together they work where they shouldn't. which is a bit of a miracle.

I couldn't suppress a smile during the Cosima Wagner sequence (which defies description) when Robert Powell finds himself on the cross.

Our dear friend, Kenneth Colley briefly turns up at the beginning of the film by way of one of two reminders of The Music Lovers (1970).

By 1979 both actors would play Jesus and while Powell's performance would be practically Papally endorsed, Kenneth's would become an almost forgotten contribution to a very controversial film.

Five rings of fire.