A wonderful and very musical movie.

Rating: 9/10 (25 March 2005)

Independent movies or Asian and European films (to make it easy, let's say all movies that haven't been produced by some big Hollywood studio), always seem to have a certain group of fans, not because they are good, but because they are "different". That so-called in-crowd believes that every movie that hasn't been made by a big studio is great art and that all other movies are bad. Never tell them that sometimes the opposite can be true, because they can't and won't believe you. Well, I'm not one of them and I watch all movies with a critical eye. And yes, I try to see as many of those "alternative" movies as well. But that's just because I'm a movie buff who is interested in all kinds of movies, not because I'm convinced that this kind of movies is automatically a lot better than the rest.
In this movie we don't follow some people, but a violin on its journey through time and the world. The movie starts in present day Montreal, where "the red violin", a famous Nicolo Bussotti violin, is being auctioned off. But instead of staying with the auction all the time, we flash back to the creation of the violin in 17th century Italy and then follow it as it makes its way through an 18th century Austrian monastery/orphanage, a violinist in 19th century Oxford and China during Mao's Cultural Revolution... Each time it brings the person who owns it a lot of fame, but also bad luck and despair, often resulting in the death of the owner or someone the owner really loves...
What I appreciated in this movie is that it wasn't just an ordinary drama or thriller. It actually tried to be original and it succeeded very well. Another thing that I also really liked was the fact that not every detail of the movie was clear until the end (for instance why the fortune teller's predictions come true, but not for the woman, but for the violin instead.). It sometimes seems that the creators of movies don't even bother about adding some mystery in their movies anymore and I really miss that. That's probably why I liked it so much in this one.
Once in a while you come across a movie that you might call a gem. Well, "The Red Violin" is one of those truly magnificent gems. It's beautiful in every possible way. The music is excellent (although you better love violin music, because that's all you'll here), the acting is very nice and the story really is very beautiful. I guess I could talk for hours about this movie, but it's better to watch it than to read about it, so I'll end my review by saying that this is a wonderful and very musical movie that doesn't deserve any less than an 8.5/10.