Two Hands: The Leon Fleisher Story

This short bio of classical music pianist Leon Fleisher begins with a 1964 minor accident when he cut his thumb. Recovery was not as he might have expected. His fingers started to curl and piano playing became nearly impossible. He became a teacher and conductor.

In 1982 surgery to relieve carpal tunnel syndrome seem to help. Then in 1991 he was diagnosed with focal distonia. Botox was used to relax the muscles of his hands. Piano playing became possible again. In 2005 he gave several recitals.

Fleisher himself tells the story. We see close up of his hands as he plays. The music is beautiful. It is great seeing a professional back doing what he likes after such a long absence.

Nathaniel Kahn has mastered the art of the short documentary, with one of the shortest and most concise works I've ever seen. Clocking in at only seventeen minutes, Two Hands is simple and moving, containing nothing that doesn't need to be there. I was blessed to see the film on the big screen with the director present for a Q&A, and it was quite an experience.

The movie tells the tragic (and triumphant) story of acclaimed concert pianist Leon Fleisher, who lost the use of his right hand in an accident. He overcame this obstacle by playing only left-handed pieces, conducting, and teaching, and years later, through experimental medical treatments, regained the use of his second hand.

As simple as the story it tells seems to be, the film is even simpler, and should be praised for this fact. As Mr. Kahn said in his post-screening discussion, this is how long the film wanted to be, and his job was simply to shave off the extra bits to get it there. At this, he succeeded. Fleisher's story is presented without overdoing anything, and the power of his experiences and his interesting character were both strong enough to carry the entire film.

It's difficult to write much more about a movie that was shorter than it's taken me to write this much, so I won't even attempt it. This is how long my thoughts on this film want to be, so I will let them be so.

This short documentary begins to explore the impact of Leon Fleischer's loss of use of his hand, seemingly the critical aspect of Mr. Fleischer's meaning as an artist and perhaps as a person given the strong push of his family towards success as a pianist. What seemed the end for this artist, we learn, becomes the beginning of deep personal growth and development for Mr. Fleischer as an artist and as a person.

The interviews are shown with directness and never pity. By the movie's end I felt I knew Mr. Fleischer and wanted to know more about others in his life and how these events affected them. I hope this movie gets made into a full length film down the road.

I loved the music and the shots of Mr. Fleischer playing. As a non musician I also enjoyed hearing him discuss how to effectively teach music.