A portrait of double bassist Maarten van Regteren Altena, filmed in his home in Amsterdam and in West Berlin. This sober film portrait focuses on Van Regteren Altena’s views on music and his musical preferences. Although he was conservatory-trained and has a past in a major orchestra, he turned his back on the classical world. For this individualist, a symphony orchestra is a group of unconscious people who “play the music of a dead bird according to the instructions of a penguin.” He seeks the unconventional and, as he himself says, wants to break the bonds of the norm—only then does music become interesting to him. Information about his personal life is limited to the statement that he comes from a bourgeois family with a penchant for the intellectual and the exotic. The film ends in West Berlin, where Van Regteren Altena gives a concert in an old, monumental building. Hints emerge of what he envisions with his music. The recording of the concert is interspersed with images Van der Keuken shot in West Berlin, primarily focusing on the arms race and the Cold War. Finally, the director shows Maarten van Regteren Altena happily and intimately strolling through West Berlin with a woman.
