Brilliantly Done

Rating: 10/10 (8 May 2002)

Many really great movies are really long and I usually can't sit through them all at one time, but this movie was different. While I was watching it I had the same feeling I did the first time I watched Citizen Kane or the Godfather, and this movie certainly belongs with them as true classics.
I was also surprised when I watched it because I didn't think watching a two hour story on a musical instrument would really catch my interest, but the movie isn't about the violin itself but about the lives of those who held it. The value of an item is increased in the events it endures, and the 'piece of history' the violin is had been through a lot. I loved the way the story traced the violin's ancestors to the present, and the way the two 'buyers' at the end aren't of descent of any of the previous owners.