Artemide’s Knee

Mourning the passing of his partner and longtime collaborator Danièle Huillet, Straub discovers quiet mercy in music and the natural world. Emerging from the void, Kathleen Ferrier's voice delivers "The Farewell" from Gustav Mahler's The Song of the Earth, a work Mahler composed in 1909 after his daughter's death, alongside Heinrich Schütz's Lament on the Death of His Wife. The landscape also serves as solace: the mountain grove where Endymion longs for his beloved Artemis—described as "a wild thing, untouchable, mortal"—appears to embody the Japanese concept of mono no aware, a gentle acceptance of the fleeting beauty of things.