A passionate movie about making music.

Rating: Null/10 (28 November 1999)

Perhaps the most interesting thing about The Red Violin is the fact that it transcends cultures. This a film about the life of a violin that travels over 300 years from renaissance Italy, to revolutionary France, through eastern Europe, onto Communist China and into modern day Montreal. Along the way this violin is the property of several people who have nothing in common, except for their love of this exceptional instrument.

The film opens with Samuel Jackson as Charles Morritz, arriving at an auction house in Montreal where this violin is about to be sold. We are soon whisked back in time to the workshop of master violin maker, Nicolo Bussotti (played by Carlo Cecchi). His young wife is pregnant and seeks the advice of the kitchen help/soothe seer. Using tarot cards the seer predicts an untimely end to the life of this woman, but somehow also sees a long and turbulent life for her. We wonder what this scullery maid is talking about, however it quickly becomes evident that she has tapped into the life of the violin.
This violin is still under construction. Nicolo feels that it is his most perfect work to date, and will present it to their child when he/she is born. Unfortunately the seer was right about the wife dying, so when all is said and done, a broken Nicolo closes up the work shop and puts the newly created, and quite perfect, violin up for sale.
The violin ends up in the hands of several people over the years, and in nicely styled vignettes we see how much this instrument means to people who really know nothing of its tragic origins. As the film moves from era to era, we hear beautiful arrangements complete with some gorgeous photography. Each story is told like a parable of sorts. Not one of them are long enough to get into complicated detail, however they are complete enough to create an impression.
I thought there were only a few minor disappointments, none of which would take away from the film as a whole. Jackson seems to draw on his character from Pulp Fiction in various scenes as he tells off hotel staff. That got a little tiring, mainly because it was so out of place with the rest of movie.
Francois Girard directs this film, using styles similar to that of Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. Like Kurbrick, Girard allows for long periods of silence, using imagery to tell his story. The story of the little orphan boy in the monastary, with a weak heart, but a passion for music, was hauntingly stunning. As we see him going as far as sleeping with the violin, we learn the true value of Busotti's creation.

Of course the tragic theme of this film is man's inhumanity to man. Jealousy, betrayal, greed, vanity and bigotry all come into play in this film. We wonder, in the end, how this violin ever survived all those years.