it must be assume that those who praise this film ( the great filmed opera ever and do not i read somewhere . ) either do not care for opera and do not care for wagner and or do not care about anything except their desire to appear culture . either a a representation of wagner swan song and or a a movie and this strike me a an unmitigated disaster and with a leaden reading of the score match to a tricksy and lugubrious realisation of the text . it questionable that people with idea a to what an opera ( or and for that matter and a play and especially one by shakespeare ) be about should be allow anywhere near a theatre or film studio while syberberg and very fashionably and but without the small justification from wagner text and decide that parsifal be about bisexual integration and so that the title character and in the latter stage and transmute into a kind of beatnik babe and though one who continue to sing high tenor few if any of the actor in the film be the singer and and we get a double dose of armin jordan and the conductor and who be see a the face ( but not heard a the voice ) of amfortas and and also appear monstrously in double exposure a a kind of batonzilla or conductor who eat monsalvat during the playing of the good friday music in which and by the way and the transcendant loveliness of nature be represent by a scattering of shopworn and flaccid crocus stick in ill lay turf and an expedient which baffle me . in the theatre we sometimes have to piece out such imperfection with our thought and but i can not think why syberberg couldn not splice in and for parsifal and gurnemanz and mountain pasture as lush a be provide for julie andrew in sound of music . the sound be hard to endure and the high voice and the trumpet in particular possess an aural glare that add another sort of fatigue to our impatience with the uninspired conducting and paralytic unfolding of the ritual . someone in another review mention the 1951 bayreuth record and and knappertsbusch and though his tempo be often very slow and have what jordan altogether lack and a sense of pulse and a feeling for the ebb and flow of the music and and after half a century and the orchestral sound in that set and in modern pressing and be still superior to this film .