A clever, well crafted film that sinks at the end

Rating: Null/10 (12 August 1999)

The Red Violin presents so many striking images and sounds that it is easy to overlook its flat characterizations. What it lacks in emotional depth, though, it makes up for in its sensuous imagination. The film is alive with masses of people, monumental locations, and the artistry of five very different eras. The fact that the plot leaps freely between characters, continents, and centuries makes its sensual impact that much greater. There is no point in trying to predict what comes next, it seems to say; we're wiser to notice what is here and now. Above all, music is here and now.
As compelling as these first four acts were for me, the final act (lasting only 30 minutes but feeling like a day) is so outrageously terrible as to nearly sink the film as a whole. Instead of sensuality and beauty, the film meditates on money, bland hotel rooms, laboratory technology, and an unnecessary (and extremely implausible) double-cross that is intended to tie the film shut. Through this tedious action, the movie instructs us about how meaningful the Red Violin is to some people -- just in case we missed this point. Of course, by now, we have a more intimate understanding of the Red Violin than any of the Act 5 characters possibly could, and so their ovations about its deep significance come off as the worst sort of pretentiousness.
At one point, an acoustical engineer (yes, the film calls in tech support to explain how good the instrument really is) says that what he'd really like to do is take the violin apart for closer analysis. As preposterous as that suggestion sounds, this is precisely what the final part of the film tries to do to what came before.
My suggestion: Skip the fifth act. Go listen to some music instead.