Review: The Red Violin (1999)

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The Red Violin

Rating

Director

François Girard

Screenplay

François Girard, Don McKellar

Length

2h 10m

Starring

Carlo Cecchi, Irene Grazioli, Anita Laurenzi, Samuele Amighetti, Christoph Koncz, Jean-Luc Bideau, Clotilde Mollet, Arthur Denberg, Jason Flemyng, Greta Scacchi, Eva Marie Bryer, Joshua Bell, Sylvia Chang, Tao Hong, Liu Zifeng, Han Xiaofei, Wang Xiaoshuai, Samuel L. Jackson, Colm Feore, Monique Mercure, Don McKellar, Ireneusz Bogajewicz, Julian Richings, Marvin Mill, Russell Yuen, Sandra Oh, Rémy Girard

MPAA Rating

Review

No orchestra would be complete without an entire section devoted to one instrument: the violin. The violin has been around since the late 16th Century. The most famous violinmaker in all of human history is Antonio Stradivari, whose violins fetch large price tags at auction. It is at one of these auctions that another violin is being sold, the legendary Red Violin.

“The Red Violin” is five stories in one. The main story involves the auctioning of the Red Violin, which has passed through numerous hands over time. The other four stories tell of the various owners the violin had since its creation.

The very first owner is its creator, Nicolo Bussotti (Carlo Cecchi), made for his unborn child. His wife, Anna (Irene Grazioli), begins the tale worried about her pregnancy fearful that it may be difficult. She consults her maid, Cesca (Anita Laurenzi), who also happens to be a Tarot reader. She states matter-of-factly that she cannot separate the child’s future from the mother’s and proceeds to tell her future.

Despite his wife’s death during childbirth, Nicolo finishes the violin anyway and stains it red, thus the name. We then see the fortuneteller reading the cards. Each new card mirrors a segment in the violin’s life.

The second segment sees the violin pass into the hands of various children in a Viennese monastery violin choir. It is young Kaspar Weiss (Christopher Koncz) who ends up with the violin as we enter the main story. The monks realize what a virtuoso he is and contact a French scholar, Georges Poussin (Jean-Luc Bideau), who agrees to take the child on as an apprentice.

In the next story, the violin ends up first in the hands of a group of gypsies and then a violin virtuoso named Frederick Pope (Jason Flemyng). Not only does he perform in front of audiences with the violin, it also figures in prominently in his bedroom where he has sexual relations with his lover and plays at the same time, increasing speed as he nears climax.

We then find the violin in a Shanghai pawnshop where a young girl receives it as a gift from her mother. We don’t see what happens to it from there until we arrive at a time in Chinese history when the Communist regime was trying to force the Western influence out. The girl, now a mother, decides that it is not safe to keep it any longer, fearing her own death or the sacrificing of the instrument to the bonfires.

The final story is really an all-encompassing story that serves as intermediary action between the stories as the bidding on the Red Violin reaches a feverish pitch. It is indeed perfect, according to all of the tests they perform on the instrument. It would be a prize for ANY of the bidders, should they get it.

“The Red Violin” is a wonderful film that very few have seen, but is worth every minute. The stories are easily and passionately woven together with seemingly little effort. What is most striking about the film is the way each story simplistically flows into the other yet leaving each with its own individualities.

There are only a few problems with the film. First, the director seems enchanted with the camera and uses several unusual angles that seem more for show than for purpose. Second, most are quite appropriate, but none of them really stand out in the spotlight. Even this last point isn’t worrisome; the film doesn’t need any strong performances, because it’s the violin’s story and no one else’s.

The film’s structure, while only bearing a slight resemblance to “Pulp Fiction,” can most easily be compared to D.W. Griffith’s “Intolerance.” “Violin’s” four stories are linked to one event, an auction. While “Intolerance” revolved only around a mother rocking her baby’s cradle and “Violin” uses a whole other story as its central anchor.

The violin has two main uses in the film. First, it carries the love of its creator through to each of its possessors. Secondly, it is a symbol of that love and its triumph over adversity through the centuries. Each step in its lineage is littered with emotional and philosophical dangers that threaten to destroy it. In the end, it survives because of the care and exacting detail its creator put into it.

Most musicians say that music is the one true universal medium that conveys the human condition to every corner of the globe…they are partially right. Films also have this same impact around the world and to bridge both film and music into one bridges the culture barrier all the better.