Review of Red Violin, The

Introduction

François Girard`s ingeniously crafted, fragmented musical tapestry of the journey of a perfect violin through the centuries and its profound effect on those who are touched by its unique beauty. Featuring an excellent international cast: Sylvia Chang, Jean-Luc Bideau, Samuel L. Jackson, Greta Scacchi, Irene Grazioli and Jason Flemyng. Its also co-written by off-beat Canadian Indie-God (and Cronenburg`s best mate) Don McKellar (Last Night).

Video

Nothing to complain about here. A sharp, well-defined image free of glitches. The colours tend to waver a little in darker scenes, but this is a very good effort.

Audio

Excellent. And its only Dolby 2.0. The elegiac score comes across powerfully.

Features

Just the theatrical trailer. And its not great quality.

Conclusion

Like McKellar and Girard`s first film, `Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould`, `The Red Violin` is a film rooted in the unique qualities of music and its power to inspire, sadden and shape human kind. Anchored in the present day, where the titular violin is being held for auction, Girard opens up the film into a bewildering and captivating canvas spanning three centuries. We begin with the story of a genius violin-maker, Bussotti (Carlo Cecchi) whose beautiful wife (Grazioli) possesses a dark-foreboding about her pregnancy, that leads Bussotti to forge the perfect instrument for his unborn son. A hundred years later in Vienna, orphaned child prodigy Kasper Weiss (Christoph Koncz) reserves the violin like a safety blanket, and plays it with angelic grace. The erotic, but passionless landscape of arrogant virtuoso violinist Frederic Pope (Flemyng) and his insouciant partner Victoria (Scacchi) occupies Victorian Oxford in the third segment. Revolutionary China is the setting for Xiang Pei (Chang) achieving a kind of freedom in the face of oppression, before we return to contemporary Montreal for the finale.

In the final section, Samuel L. Jackson`s driven, obsessive antiquarian submerges himself into the alluring mystery of the red violin. Consequently, it`s the most conventional, but probably most successful segment, with what might be an all-time best performance from Jackson. The complex, episodic narrative is not wholly persuasive, failing to develop a truly resonant depth or a sufficiently involving sense of time and place. Girard`s film has a tendency to become cold and technical, particularly during the Vienna/Oxford mid-section. But as its rhythmic and apparently disparate strands glide smoothly and sublimely together in the final act, the film gains a resonance far greater than the sum of its parts. A very worthwhile, if difficult exploration of music as love, comfort, seduction, freedom and commodity. You might think twice about giving this film the time of day, but you really shouldn`t, I think you`ll be pleasantly surprised.