Parsifal (1882), Richard Wagner's enigmatic final opera, was intended for performance only at the specially designed Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, Germany. Made to commemorate its centenary, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's Parsifal (1982) is a paradoxical film. A triumph of stereo sound recording that uses all the resources of studio shooting and technology, it is a grand attempt at spiritual reunification with the fractured past. Syberberg attempts to fuse the approaches of Wagner and Bertolt Brecht, while reinventing the staging and lighting strategies made famous by German Expressionism. Acknowledging the historical fissure separating the 1980s from the silent era, Syberberg's Parsifal is a Grail quest linked to the structure of cinema itself.