Ciné-concert : LE RÉVÉLATEUR

Le Révélateur is Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (Jerusalem In My Heart) and Réka Csiszér (VÍZ) soundtrack to Philippe Garrel’s film of the same name. The eight tracks see Moumneh and Csiszér create music that’s both stark and luminous, a form of minimalism that’s simultaneously ethereal and laden with eerie presence. Wielding cello, buzuq, rababa, voices, electronics and earthy synthesizers, they move from haunting hymns atop charred strings into tenderly hypnotic instrumentals draped with rustling field recordings. Immersing us in a space where locomotion and stasis coexist, like moving through scenery both uniform and constantly changing.

Written, directed and produced by French filmmaker Garrel in 1968, the ominously silent black and white ‘Le Révélateur’ takes its name from a French term used to describe developing film negatives. It follows a child and his parents roaming, perhaps fleeing, through a desolate environment. “The sober, solitary existence of the three characters really touches something in you,” Moumneh relates. “The family are on the verge of disaster but don’t get there. It’s poignant, I think all our lives can feel constantly on the edge of catastrophe without quite crossing the threshold… the film channels a malaise that feels timeless.”

Csiszér and Moumneh met in 2018 while performing at a festival in Baden, Switzerland, and quickly became friends and collaborators. In 2023, they presented a live soundtrack to Le Révélateur for the first time. It was Moumneh who proposed Garrel’s film, one he had long carried with him. “I was convinced from the first second,” Csiszér says. “I come from a difficult childhood, my parents and I were displaced, so the idea of not having a home is very close to me.” A Hungarian-Transylvanian born in East Germany, raised in Vienna, Csiszér is now based in Berlin. “For me, home is everything and nothing. I’m forever disoriented. The movie follows nomadic characters, always moving, no stillness. I can relate to that.”

The duo’s performances alongside Garrel’s film were improvised within structures they’d developed beforehand. After performing the soundtrack several times, they decided to cement it. Borrowing a friend’s house in Montreal for several days in late 2025, they refined and recorded the versions captured here, the tracks “composed through improvisation,” as Moumneh explains. ‘Part 01’ opens with sibilant rustles and creaks before a synth swells and strings start to groan, laying a portentous atmosphere the rest of the album builds from. ‘Part 03’ sees cello and buzuq glitch and tangle. ‘Part 05’ lays a lamenting melody beneath Csiszér’s mournfully ascending vocals. That leads into ‘Part 06’, Csiszér speaks in Hungarian while effects interrupt and distort her expression.

The whole album is imbued with the atmosphere of Garrel’s film. But it has a life beyond accompaniment. “We wanted to capture the emotion of the movie, the feeling of living in between,” Csiszér explains. “There’s a connection between minimalism, and feelings of disorientation and numbness.” As a film, ‘Le Révélateur’ leaves voids for the viewer to fill in themselves, to reflect upon and perhaps see a reflection of themselves. It’s a quality Csiszér and Moumneh convey strikingly. Grasping a malaise, but also illuminating its darkened crevices.

(Daryl Worthington, March 2026)

Le Révélateur (AAR 04) – Réka Csiszér and Radwan Ghazi Moumneh

Tracks

واحد — wāḥid — 1

اثنان — ithnayn — 2

ثلاثة — thalātha — 3

أربعة — arba’a — 4

خمسة — khamsa — 5

ستة — sitta — 6

سبعة — sab’a — 7

ثمانية — thamāniya — 8